


Medicine for the Soul

by noworneverland97 (yellowsmartie08)



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alex Danvers-centric, Angst, College!AU, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Misgendering, Music!AU, Transphobia, in which everyone gets a detailed backstory, nb!alex danvers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2018-11-19 01:31:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11302968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellowsmartie08/pseuds/noworneverland97
Summary: After Jeremiah's death, Alex thinks they've put down their violin for good. In their first year of college and with a lot of prodding from Kara, Lucy and Maggie, they pick it up again and discover that music really is medicine for the soul.a.k.a.the completely unwarranted college, music, and nb!Alex AU.





	1. Allegro molto appassionato: solo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With many thanks to Sky (@icoulddancettothisbeat) for betaing and brainstorming with me.
> 
> If you're interested, the versions of the Mendelssohn concerto I've been listening to are by David Garrett and Julia Fischer.
> 
> Title inspired by Nathan West's tattoo because it's awesome.
> 
> Chapter titles come from the arrangement of the concerto for flute because that's the one I've got.

They hear segments of songs everywhere, and it aches inside their chest.

They try and soothe it by playing playlists on loop, moving between genres and composers and bands in the desperate hope that merely listening will fill this void.

But no. The humming, yes, more, but every time they dare to murmur a line of lyrics a shot of anxiety cuts it short because what if people hear?

They crave it, Alex craves the freedom of playing, bow in hand, fingertips dancing on the strings with just enough pressure to get that note – there, but right now there’s an internal battle inside them between this craving and the crippling fear of being judged.

Three days later and Alex is kneeling in front of their bed, staring at their violin case. Shut.

They run their hands over the top and let the memories flood over them.

 _“I want a sticker, I want a sticker like that, Dad!” Alex bounces on their toes and gestures excitedly to the cellist just disappearing into the auditorium with a case covered in tour stickers and, more importantly, one saying_ May the Fourth be with you _._

_Jeremiah keeps hold of Alex’s other hand as they’re shepherded through to the foyer with the other early arrivals._

_“Tell you what, Al,” he says, ruffling their hair. “For every year you keep playing, I’ll get you a sticker.”_

_A week later, Alex comes home to find an envelope on the table with their name on, and their shriek of excitement at their very first sticker makes Jeremiah laugh and Eliza beam and they both look on proudly as Alex gives them a mini recital._

Alex picks at the corner of that sticker, then presses it down where the adhesive has failed from being moved from case to case. It’s faded now, and half covered by _Utah Youth Orchestra 2004_. Fifteen in all: ten from Jeremiah, handed to them religiously on the same date every year, and four for each year they were in the UYO.

The final one sits at the head of the case and Alex feels a familiar lump lodge itself in their throat as they turn their head to trace the familiar words.

_“I’m so proud of you, Alex.” Jeremiah picks them up and spins them round. Their usual protests of “I’m eleven, Dad!” don’t feature as they grin up at him and hug him tight._

_“Thanks,” they say somewhat abashedly, and blush. Jeremiah tries to ruffle their hair but they dance out of the way with a laugh. He reaches into his back pocket and slips out a familiar envelope._

_“Here. An extra one.”_

_I play the violin. What’s your superpower?_

The irony.

A burst of anger courses through Alex and they shove the case to the back of the bed, curling up on the floor, fists pushing into the floor, then their eyes, then wrapping around their biceps to squeeze out the pain, the memories.

Alex forgets about their violin for a busy five and a bit days until a laundry crisis has them hunting for socks in every nook and cranny of their half of the room. Under their bed they find three (where the other one went they have no idea), and their slightly crushed music folder.

 _If found, please return to Alex Danvers_ stares up at them in Alex’s childish scrawl, and they flip it open to see a page of technical exercises with pencil scratchings all over it. They slide it out and a grin slips across their lips before they can stop it. They settle on their bed, socks forgotten, and lean back against the wall with a pencil in their left hand, fingers tapping out patterns as they run their eyes down the notes.

They get half way down the page and toss it aside, flicking through the folder and letting their grin turn into a full-blown smile at what is pretty much a comprehensive history of their musical career. When they get to the end of the books at the back of the folder their heart shudders and they swallow, mouth suddenly dry. Carefully, they extract the book and run their fingers over the title, slowly opening it up and seeing another _Alex Danvers_ in neater handwriting, then they turn the page to the start of the piece.

At the site of the familiar notes Alex’s heart squeezes again and they’re back in Abravanel Hall watching the soloist, slack-jawed, as she plays notes Alex can only dream of reaching let alone mastering with such warmth.

_“Alex?” It takes Jeremiah a moment to notice the lack of small child behind him and he heads back along the row to put a hand on Alex’s shoulder._

_“I want to sound like that.” It’s a whisper and he almost doesn’t catch it, but then he does and he folds out the seat again to sit next to them. “She sounded like magic.”_

_“You can sound like that, if you put the hours in.”_

_Alex nods slowly. “Lots of practice. More than for surfing, maybe.”_

_“You can still surf, Al.”_

_“Of course I can still surf,” Alex scoffs, giving Jeremiah such a dirty look he has to fight to keep a straight face._

Alex’s heart is playing tug of war between happiness and sorrow, and they rub at their eyes with one hand as they take in the markings they’ve left all over the concerto. Despite having made them more or less ten years ago they can remember making the vast majority of them.

 _Aim HERE!_ is written above a particularly fast passage.

 _Freefall!_ and an arrow mark one of their favourite runs.

 _Soft, slow_ are framed by a mass of notes about phrasing.

The third movement is entirely blank, and Alex gives it no more than a cursory glance before setting the music down.

_“I did some research, Dad, and I think this is the best one to get,” Alex says as they spin on the computer chair. Jeremiah leans down and scrolls through the description._

_“Have you spoken to your teacher about learning this?” he asks, and Alex shrugs._

_“If she doesn’t want to teach me to play it I can teach myself. Just needs lots of practice, right?” they say and look up at him with such wide eyes Jeremiah can’t help but smile._

_“Budge.” Alex hops out of the chair and lets their dad sit down. “Remember that she’s the expert. If she thinks you’re not ready, work with her. This is a really famous concerto, Alex. I don’t think there are many nine-year-olds who’d be able to play it.”_

The next day, Alex wakes up to an orchestra playing itself in circles in their head. They groan, hear Lucy groan in reply, and cover their head with their pillow in an attempt to go back to sleep.

They give up after ten minutes of a concerto so familiar they catch themselves humming it as they grab their running clothes and change, deliberately selecting a Bare Naked Ladies playlist on their phone as they head out.

Mendelssohn was not going to ruin the day before it had even started.

_Alex’s teacher whistles. “Mendelssohn in E Minor? Alex, that’s - ”_

_“I can do it.” Alex has their hands deep in their pockets and their shoulders back, chin jutted out almost defiantly as their teacher sighs and puts down the music._

_“I’m not saying you can’t, but pieces like this require a certain level of…experience. Musical maturity.”_

_“I’ll get experience, then. And Mom says I’m mature for my age.”_

_Their teacher laughs. “As true as I’m sure that is, this isn’t a piece you can just pick up and play. From where you are now, this is going to take years.”_

_Except their teacher doesn’t know that you should never hint to Alex Danvers that they can’t do something – especially not nine-year-old Alex Danvers with a steely glint in their eye._

The run doesn’t help. Or, it helps in every way except getting the Mendelssohn out of their head, and Alex starts to curse their irritatingly good memory as they make their way to labs, fingers absently starting to tap out the notes on their thigh until they notice and dig their nails into their palm instead.

It’s a long day. A frustrating day, because 9-to-5 labs and basic lab safety means no listening to anything other than the whirr of the fume hoods and the gurgle of the rotary evaporator ( _shit the gurgle of the rotary evaporator_ ) while Mendelssohn drives them to snap at anyone who tells them that their solution shouldn’t be that colour. They know it shouldn’t – it’s not their fault that _down down up down trill and slide, down_ is being drilled into their head without their permission.

It appears their face says it all and Lucy silently hands them a fresh cup of coffee once they’ve shrugged out of their lab coat and packed Lucy’s stuff into their bag so she doesn’t have to lug it down to ROTC training.

“Donuts?”

Alex nods grimly. “Donuts.”

Lucy claps them on the shoulder and jogs off, leaving Alex to jab headphones in their ears and storm off to the library, music uncomfortably loud and yet still not distracting enough.

Their seat in the library is thankfully empty. Disregarding whatever pecking order there might be in the communal study spaces, Alex had already stared down several, surprisingly less stressed older students who had dared to sit at the table they had claimed as theirs on the first day of classes.

Their seat is free, but their table is decidedly not. Alex ignores the prickle of irritation on the back of their neck as they take in just how much of the surface space is being taken up by the other person’s sprawled textbooks, and subtly shifts them towards the centre of the table as they unload their notes.

The girl makes an apologetic noise and tugs her notes further towards her, and Alex wastes no more than a glance on her before they settle back to get started on their report.

Alex is annotating a graph when their phone bleeps, and they see the screen flash once before it goes dead. They curse under their breath, causing the girl to briefly flick her eyes up to theirs, and then they’re fumbling in their bag for their charger – damn.

They were in such a hurry they didn’t grab it from their desk, and now they’ve got nothing filling their head to soak up distractions like a sponge, and speaking of distractions –

“Fuck.” They drop their head to the table and this time the girl looks up properly just as Alex lets out a quiet groan as their brain picks up the concerto.

Again.

\--

Alex stares at their violin.

It’s beautiful. Sleek wood, carrying a scent that reminds them so much of home, looking just like it did the last time they put it away.

Alex’s hand shakes as they pick it up and give the A string an experimental twang. They wince at the resulting soggy thwump that is most definitely not an A, and carefully wind the tuning peg until the string sits somewhere in the region of the right note – they’ve never had perfect pitch, not like Kara.

They quickly tune the other strings, thankfully not quite as bad as the first, and apply resin to the now pretty old horsehair of their bow after the customary puffy sneeze as the resin case releases a cloud of dust.

Alex tucks the violin under their chin and takes a deep breath. They explore the strings with their fingers as their hand falls instinctively into the right position and they straighten their back, drop their shoulders, close their eyes.

They bring the bow to the strings, slowly, carefully, and pull a note out of the violin so hesitantly that for a moment Alex thinks they’ve missed the violin altogether.

But no – it’s there, just quiet, wobbly, like a new-born foal trying to find its feet for the first time.

Alex feels their face relax into what Jeremiah jokingly called their ‘practice frown’, and they play a couple of scales and arpeggios more confidently, fingertips deftly finding the notes with only a couple of slips and it feels incredible. Liberating.

Alex huffs out a sigh and frowns harder, reaching way back into their memory to find the shorter pieces they used to play – ah.

The violin is back up instantly and their fingers are flying through a series of jigs they had fallen in love with once their teacher had convinced them that practicing the same concerto over and over again was a sure-fire way to never finish learning it.

_“You’ll get bored if you only practice this and your scales.”_

_“No I won’t.” Alex is almost bouncing as they pack their music away, eyes shining after a particularly productive lesson._

_“You will, Alex.”_

_“Nope!”_

_Three lessons later they arrive, and fidget when their teacher asks them how much practice they got done._

_“Um,” they begin, and she gives them a knowing smile._

_“I looked out some of my old favourites for you,” she says, and reaches into her tattered bag to pass them a bundle of well-thumbed books. “Have a flick through those when you get home, and choose a couple that you want to learn. We’ve got to keep a busy mind like yours entertained, after all.”_

_Alex blushes and nods, slipping the books into their bag._

_“I don’t want to stop playing the Mendelssohn though,” they say, getting their violin out._

_“Think of it instead as furthering your musical education. When you perform, you want to bring together all your technique and all your understanding – and remember when I said you needed musical experience for this piece? This is what I meant. Dabble in other composers, try out different styles. You might find something you like more.”_

_Alex pffts, causing their teacher to laugh._

“Evening, Danvers.”

Alex nearly drops their violin at Lucy’s voice. They go to shove it back in the case but remember at the last second that it is in fact a very precious instrument, so they put it down firmly instead. Lucy pauses as she grabs her towel and waves a hand in Alex’s general direction.

“You don’t have to stop on my account,” she says, but Alex is already unclipping their shoulder rest and loosening their bow, and before Lucy is out the door the violin is back under their bed and they’ve reburied their face in their pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback very much appreciated, my aim is weekly updates but we'll see how that goes
> 
> I'm @thesesausagesaremouldy on tumblr please come and distract me from the impending car crash that is my academic future


	2. Allegro molto appassionato: tutti

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for: transphobia, implied misgendering, alcohol. Drink responsibly, folks.  
> Thanks to Sky again for betaing and cheering me on.

Alex wakes to the smell of warm donuts and they half slide, half fall out of bed, landing on their knees and shuffling over to where the smell is coming from. Lucy pokes them with her foot and laughs as Alex sleepily swats at her.

“Morning, sunshine.”

Alex mumbles back around a mouthful of donut, leaning against their bed with a happy moan.

“You’re welcome,” Lucy ruffles their hair and Alex ducks, glaring at her as best they can without their glasses on. “Coffee’s on the side.”

Dusting off their sugary fingers, Alex lets out another moan and grabs the cup from Lucy’s desk.

“Lifesaver,” they breathe, and Lucy shrugs.

“I’ll take that title.”

The loud buzz of Alex’s phone on their desk startles them and they dive for it, fumbling with the screen until they hit the right button.

“Danvers.”

“Is that any way to greet me, Alexandra?”

Alex’s head drops back against their bed and they push down the retort that threatens to bubble up and out.

“Hey, Mom. How are you?” they say instead.

“Did you get the list of internships I sent you? Applications open this week and you don’t want to miss out, do you?”

“It’s eight in the morning, I haven’t even finished my coffee yet!”

Eliza hmms, and Alex lobs a shoe across the room. “Just make sure you get your applications in soon, sweetie. It would be a shame not to put your potential to good use.”

“Yes, Mom,” Alex says, and chucks the other shoe after the first. Lucy wordlessly tosses them back to them.

“I’m so proud of you, Alex.”

“I know.” The first shoe goes again.

“It would be nice to see you if you can spare some of your precious time to visit your family. Kara misses you.”

“I am doing a degree, Mom, it’s not like I can put deadlines on hold when I feel like it - ”

“The key to a successful career is time management, you know that. No distractions, a clear timetable, focus, drive.”

“Got all that, Mom.” They can sense the direction of the conversation changing and their heart thumps faster as they throw the second shoe so hard mud sprays over the floor.

Eliza tuts and Alex can almost hear the disapproving, tight-lipped frown.

“All that non-binary nonsense can’t be helping. I don’t understand why you can’t channel your dramatics into your studies instead of creating this alter ego that is only going to make your life more complicated.”

“It’s not an alter ego.”

“Be sensible, Alexandra, what else could it be?”

“Bye, Mom.”

Alex sits for a moment with their thumb pressed forcefully against the hang up button, phone held in a white-knuckle grip as they wait for the anger in their chest to become exhaustion, prickling humiliation flickering up the back of their throat and wrapping around their ears, crackling and buzzing and burning as they shake their head and swallow, scrambling off the floor and pulling on shorts with trembling fingers.

“See you, Lane,” is all they can manage, avoiding Lucy’s gaze, headphones jammed in as they set off on a run that leaves them aching and sore in a different way, a better way, and it’s nearly enough to numb the memory of Eliza’s words circling around Alex’s head like vultures around prey.

They arrive at their first lecture with two minutes to spare and a piece of toast jammed in their mouth. That they’re jumping down the steps as the professor watches the clock only adds to the tight coil of anxiety in the pit of their stomach, as does seeing someone sitting at the end of their row.

“Sorry,” Alex mutters as they slip past the girl to their favourite seat and collapse into it with a huff.

“You look like someone spat in your coffee.” The girl picks up the handful of pens Alex managed to knock off her pad of paper as they brushed past. Alex ignores her, and after a moment of watching them, they see her shrug and return to whatever she was doodling.

They can’t focus. It’s usually their favourite lecture of the week, but this time the words swim in one ear and out the other. They have a dim thought that they can’t afford to lose another day to distractions after the Mendelssohn incident, before the thought plummets into a repeat of the morning’s conversation and they snap their pen lid in half.

_“There’s – I’m – it’s – I’m - ” Alex forces themselves to take a breath. Kara grips their knee tighter. “There’s a word. Words? A phrase. Non-binary. It means – obviously, you know what it means, I know you know what it means, but in this context, it – neither male nor female. That’s me. I’m in the middle, somewhere, Mom. I’m non-binary. I’m non-binary. It fits me. Really well, I think it does, and I wanted to tell you, I’ve wanted to tell you for so long, that I’m non-binary, and I think I can be – no, I know I can be happy like that. Like this.”_

The lecture flies.

It flies, and Alex somehow fights the static in their head to scrawl three pages of notes and several diagrams, harsh scribbles framing each page from each time their mind wanders.

They move between classes on auto-pilot, head down, shoulders curling in against their will, trying, desperately, to slip into the gap between black and white, left and right, up and down and here and there and all the yes-no options that seem to loom out at them, taunting, cruel, hurting.

_Eliza doesn’t say anything, and Alex alternates between looking at her and looking at Kara’s hand running soothing circles on their knee._

_“How long?” Eliza says eventually._

_“What?”_

_“How long? You said you’ve wanted to tell me for so long. How long, Alexandra?”_

_Alex swallows and Kara shuffles closer. “Just before Dad.”_

Nervous energy builds in them all day and everything is too loud, too close, too against them. They flinch at every pronoun, ears straining to make sure the crowds are talking about the professor, the lab technician, boyfriends, girlfriends, parents – anyone but them.

Alex is still shaking when they find Lucy outside, waiting for them, and they nod automatically when she asks if they’re okay.

“Al,” she says softly and Alex kicks one foot against the wall.

“How was your day?”

Their voice is rough, their jaw stiff, and they block out its imperfect pitch with a slow exhale.

“Fine,” Lucy says, and Alex thanks Rao they’ve known each other so long she can read them like a book as Lucy starts explaining her new module.

Concrete and cobbles pass under their feet with increasing speed as they nod along to Lucy. They hum in the right places, offer indignant agreements where needed, and it’s nice, it’s almost normal, and as the pair pull up to their door Alex nudges Lucy’s arm with a small smile. Lucy gives them a nod, and Alex almost considers admitting that they’re not okay before they see their bed in the same state they left it that morning and they know that if they start to talk about it there’s no knowing what will come out.

_“You lied to me all these years?”_

_“I didn’t_ lie _to anyone - ” Alex protests._

_“This is you coping, isn’t it?”_

_Alex frowns. “I don’t - ”_

_“We’ve all taken his death hard, but deciding you’re not a woman – that is it, isn’t it? – just to try to take your father’s place is a touch too far, don’t you think?”_

_“That’s not - ”_

_“Do you think he would be proud of this?”_

_“I - ” Alex closes their eyes. “I don’t know, I think so - ”_

_“And I suppose you want to change your name? You want to reject the name we picked out so carefully for you, just to satisfy this little teenage rebellion, this latest cry for attention?”_

_“No.” Alex’s eyes snap open and Kara’s pulling them into her shoulder. “No, I like Alex. Just Alex. I always have, Mom, I’m not changing that.”_

_Eliza squints at them. “But you want something else changing,” she says quietly._

_Alex debates not asking, not giving her the ammunition, but dammit they’re already living through their second worst nightmare and they might as well go all in._

_“I want to use they/them pronouns,” they whisper, and Eliza’s eyes harden._

_“You want me to refer to you, my_ daughter _, as ‘them’?”_

_“Plenty of people do it. It’s not that unusual.”_

_“And how many eminent scientists do you know who are referred to as ‘them’, Alexandra?”_

_“There are some, it doesn’t have to stop me being a scientist, I’ve looked into it, I promise - ”_

_“The world makes fun of people like that. Non-binaries.” Eliza says it matter-of-factly and Kara makes to stand as Alex tugs on her sleeve to stop her._

_“People like me, Mom,” they say quietly, and Kara is glaring at Eliza, and a last chance blooms, flickers in their chest even as the hurt blazes across Eliza’s face. “This is me. It is. I’m sorry if you can’t see that, but it is.”_

_Their voice cracks and they swallow hard. Eliza finally runs out of words and gives a slow nod._

_“I think it’s time we all went to bed,” she says, despite the fact it’s only eight in the evening. “Some things are better discussed after a good night’s rest.”_

_She strides past them and up the stairs, and Alex stares after her._

“You know things,” Alex begins, and Lucy quirks an eyebrow.

“Flatterer.”

“Shut up,” Alex says, and a smile threatens their lips. “You know the bars around here.”

“Careful, Danvers, you’ll give me a reputation,” Lucy says, but she sits up from her bed and watches Alex as they stare up at the ceiling from flat on the floor.

“You already have a reputation, nothing I could do would change that.”

“Oh, I don’t know, I’m sure we could think of something.”

Alex does smile this time and their chest eases slightly. “Anyway, I thought you could show me around this evening.”

“Around?”

“You know, bars. Clubs. Anywhere that’ll sell me something strong enough to forget about today.”

Lucy hesitates. “Alex…”

“Come on, Luce. You’ll look after me, right?”

Alex’s eyes are wide and Lucy knows the exact feeling they’re trying to drown and she sighs, because she will look after them like they look after her, and she feels a whole lot happier knowing that their well-being is in her own hands than those of some near-stranger who might see an inebriated Alex as an easy target.

“Get your coat, Danvers.”

_“Al?” Kara’s voice is low and gentle and soft and Alex lurches into her with a strangled sob, fingers clawing at her back as Kara hugs them back. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you, Alex.”_

_“You’re so strong, Al.”_

_“You’re so brave.”_

_“I love you, Alex. I love you so much.”_

_Alex doesn’t know how long it takes for the tears to dry up. They have a crick in their neck but they don’t care, and their back twinges where they’ve been tucked into Kara’s neck because they’re still taller than she is, even though the gap is closing with each passing week._

_They open their mouth to apologise but Kara hushes them with a gentle kiss to their forehead._

_“I don’t know how you did that, Alex. You’re incredible.”_

_Alex barks out a laugh. “I’m anything but incredible.”_

Lucy gets asked for ID and Alex doesn’t, and that’s when they know it’s going to be a good night.

“It’s a height thing,” they explain. Lucy kicks their shin.

“You’re a height thing.”

“And that devastating display of maturity is why they shouldn’t’ve ID’d you, I’m sure.” They inspect the rows of bottles behind the counter. “Any recommendations?”

Lucy waves two fingers at the barman.

“Ah, a mystery. I can live with a mystery,” they say.

Lucy places a bottle of something – beer, Alex’s sniff confirms – in front of them and clinks the neck of her bottle against theirs. “Just drink, you nerd.”

Alex does, and they remind themselves to stick with Lucy as a drinking buddy because damn that is _good_ , and they down half the bottle in one breath, to Lucy’s amusement.

“So,” they say in between gulps. “You come here often?”

Lucy snorts and Alex watches, unimpressed, as she flounders for a tissue.

“You know what I meant,” they huff, and Lucy pats their arm and clears her throat.

“Sure.” They go to knock the bottom of her bottle towards her and she jolts out of the way, sniggering. “Law study groups often end up here, that’s all.”

“Ah.” They drain their bottle and gesture for another. “We usually use the library, but same difference.”

“I think there are fewer straight white men with bigoted opinions in bioengineering, Alex,” Lucy says. Alex stretches, head tilting.

“You’re probably not wrong,” they say as they accept their next drink. “I could make a joke about alcohol being the solution, but I won’t.”

Lucy snorts again and Alex grins and they’re doing a great job of blotting out Eliza’s voice until they hit the shots, and each one is knocked back to the tune of another accusation, another careless word flung in their direction.

_“‘They’ sounds like an inanimate object, Alex.”_

_“Stop making a fuss.”_

_“Give me a break, Alexandra. This is tough for me too, you know.”_

Freak.

Daughter.

Problem.

Sister.

Exaggeration, complication, issue, broken, wrong, nothing, no one, wrong, empty, wrong.

_Worthless._

“Oh, look.”

Alex swipes at their cheeks and inspects their damp fingers.

“No more, Al,” Lucy says gently and shakes her head at the barman as Alex sways on the stool. “Let’s get you home.”

Alex slumps. “Home?”

“The dorm,” Lucy corrects, and pulls Alex towards her, propping them up as she settles the tab.

“Oh,” Alex mumbles. They swing their arm over Lucy’s shoulder and sigh. “Home. Home is where the…” They frown.

“Come on, champ.” Lucy guides them towards the door as Alex searches for the rest of the phrase under their breath, counting off words on their fingers, coming to a halt every couple of steps as it comes and goes through their mind too quickly for them to channel the words to their mouth.

“I can’t remember it,” they mumble as Lucy lays them on their bed. “What is it?”

“What’s what, Danvers?” Lucy guides Alex into pyjamas and hands them a bottle of water. “Drink.”

“Home. Something about home. And – organs. Not music. Blood, and – tissue, organs.”

“ _Home is where the heart is_. Drink.”

Alex drinks obediently and sighs. “The heart. Lub-dub.”

Lucy rolls them under their duvet and points sternly to the water bottle. “Lub-dub indeed.”

“Lub-dub,” Alex agrees, and continues drinking. “Heart. Do you think my heart will ever stop hurting?”

They sound so broken that Lucy’s own heart tugs, and she pulls them into a gentle but tight hug.

“Sure it will, Danvers,” she says softly. “It just needs time.”

“Time-distance-velocity,” they say wisely. “A nice triangle.”

Lucy chuckles. “Nerd.”

“I like triangles.”

“Okay, Alex.”

“And squares.”

“Go to sleep.”

“And circles. They go round and round and _right round baby right round_ \- ”

“Go to sleep, Danvers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After doing some editing this week, I realised this fic currently has a lot of a) shrugging, b) frowning and c) height jokes.
> 
> This chapter has kinda grown on me and any feedback is hugely appreciated. Thanks to everyone who's left kudos/comments here and on tumblr, I don't think I stopped smiling all week.


	3. Allegro molto appassionato: leggiero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit more lighthearted than the last chapter. Sky, thanks again for betaing and the gazillion read throughs. You're awesome.
> 
> Tiny content warning: one flashback is set before Alex comes out as nb so refers to them as 'she'.
> 
> Maggie's playing is inspired by Peter Gergely.

It becomes a habit.

Not just in that first bar, but in the others dotted around campus and outside, with coursemates and Lucy just as frequently as alone, after good days and bad, in a way that Alex argues is just shy of turning into an addiction.

Lucy thinks they’ve crossed the line already, but Alex is stubborn enough that she gives up trying to talk to them about it after the fourth time they shut her down. They compromise on the promise that on bad days they will call Lucy, and on the bad days, the dangerous days, they do, just as Lucy calls Alex to let them know she’s going climbing, or hiking, or just away from campus life while her head calms down.

Not for the first time, Alex acknowledges Lucy’s taste in drinking establishments as they settle into their first beer of the night to the sound of musicians swapping over in the corner of the bar, a saxophonist making way for a small figure with a guitar case in hand. Alex watches, intrigued, as she sets up and tunes, fingers dancing through a riff that makes them sit up.

They miss their face with their glass more than once as they get drawn into the slow chords she plays, deliberate and strong, and nearly drop it when she starts singing.

Her voice is husky and low and Alex shivers as the hairs on their arms stand up. The nervous edge to her voice disappears as she settles in and the sound becomes richer, thick with emotion, drawn through her fingers and out of her lungs, moving with her head as she rises to a chorus of warm pain that has Alex’s heart thumping along to the beat she taps out with her foot.

The song trails off into an afterthought and the guitarist visibly jumps when a smattering of applause starts. Her eyes light up and she smiles, and Alex’s foot slips off the bar stool.

Her next song is more upbeat and Alex joins the small crowd in tapping their thigh as the bar is recharged with energy, following her as she paints a picture of hope in the cramped corner, hope carried on the back of love and loss, struggle and strength in the rising notes and in the swelling chords as the music floods into the walls and curls behind Alex’s sternum to hook their heart, catching it and holding it as the last notes die away.

They take with them Alex’s breath and they firmly put their glass down and fold their arms, leaning back against the counter and watching the guitarist shrug out of her leather jacket. She rolls her shoulders and flexes her fingers, then picks her guitar up again.

Alex mourns the lack of her voice for a hot minute until their jaw drops as she begins picking at the strings and hitting the heel of her hand against the guitar, creating the backing for not her voice but her fingers, and Alex stares.

They stare as she plucks melody lines carefully between strummed chords, and they stare as her fingers fly up and down the fretboard, and they stare as each note is thrown into the air with confidence, surety, as though she’s been doing this since she was big enough to hold the guitar.

Loud, harsh rhythms as well as the quieter ones cushion them and combined with the increasing number of bottles on the counter, they get pulled into a sort-of-happy, sort-of-empty bubble, soft and soothed and somewhat protected from the day just passed.

_“Precision is what you need, Alex.”_

_Their teacher circles a phrase and Alex sighs._

_“When you’ve got the precision, the technical ability, you can add your performance and interpretation on top of it. Before you can do that, your fingers have to know exactly what you’re asking them to do without even thinking about it.”_

_She sets a new page in front of them and Alex sighs again._

_“Sight reading. Take two minutes to look at extract four.”_

_“Do I have to?” Alex mutters, and their teacher raises a stern eyebrow. Alex grumbles for a moment then runs an eye over the music, and sighs again, loudly._

Alex takes a gulp of their beer, and hurriedly swallows when they see who’s arrived next to them at the bar.

“Hey,” they cough, and wipe their mouth quickly with the back of their hand. “You were the one playing just now.”

“Nothing gets past you, does it?” The brunette leans on the counter and waits for Mike to swing around to their side of the bar. Alex squints at her.

“You’re in my biochem lecture,” they say, and take another sip.

“Mhmm.”

A voice in the back of their head shouts that they should stop talking, leave it, compliment her and finish their drink quickly and quietly, but apparently their mouth doesn’t get the memo.

“Sounded good. Different.”

She stiffens. “Different?” The word is sharp, and Alex recoils in fuzzy confusion.

“Yeah – the fingerstyle, it’s hard to get right, but yours – it, the technique, it just – it _flowed_ , you know, I haven’t heard many players who can play like you…like…that.”

She turns and looks down at Alex with folded arms and guarded eyes but something, something about her stance seems open, inviting, and Alex is relieved to see the tension start to fade from her shoulders.

“I liked it,” they say with a shrug. They pinch their hand into a vague claw shape and pick at imaginary strings. “You’ve got skilled fingers. A good sense of rhythm.”

One eyebrow shoots up at that and Alex thinks they see a small smirk play at the corner of their new companion’s lips.

“Maggie Sawyer,” Maggie says eventually, holding out a hand. Alex shakes it rather enthusiastically, mesmerised by the feeling of Maggie’s rough fingertips on the back of their hand. Maggie’s smirk grows when blood rushes to their cheeks, and their mouth runs dry at the appearance of a dimple – _two_ dimples.

“Danvers. Alex Danvers,” they return and the smirk gets broader still.

“Alex Danvers,” she repeats, and sits down. “Do you play, Danvers?” Maggie nods towards her guitar tucked between her and the counter.

“Oh, no.” Alex laughs and downs the rest of their beer. “I did a… project, on the evolution of stringed instruments and there’s so much variety in guitars, you know? People don’t realise that the different shapes, sizes, even the number of strings, it all has a history. They all have a different sound and when you add in all the ways of touching the strings, it’s incredible how complex guitar music has the potential to be.”

They finish their ramble and look up to find Maggie with her head tilted to the side and her eyes soft. They’re suddenly self-conscious and signal to Mike for another drink, fiddling with their collar and the back of their neck while they wait for Maggie to say something. When she doesn’t, Alex clears their throat and points at her guitar.

“Nice instrument.”

“It does the job.”

“You sound like you know it pretty well.”

“We’ve been together a few years.” Maggie rests a protective hand on the top of the case and the tension starts to seep back into her. Alex looks intrigued.

“The way you play I’d have said you’ve been playing for…” they pause and think, nose scrunching, “upwards of six years. Yeah.” They nod, and Maggie momentarily splits into two people.

“I had other guitars before this one.” That’s all Maggie says on the matter before she’s sliding off the bar stool and slipping her guitar onto her back, taking a deep breath and sending a small smile in Alex’s direction. “See you around, Danvers.”

\--

“Alex Danvers.”

Alex looks up from their work to see Maggie pulling out the chair opposite them.

“Sawyer,” they say quietly, nodding hello. Maggie slips a packet of mints from her pocket and extends it towards Alex.

“Mint?”

Alex looks up again and stares at the packet. “Oh, no. Thanks,” they add, and Maggie shrugs, dropping one into her own mouth and opening her textbook.

They work in more of a companionable silence than Alex has ever experienced in the library, with the odd highlighter and the occasional pen being passed between them. Alex manages to raise their head as Maggie starts what is approximately her sixth mint and they don’t clear their mildly horrified expression in time, and Maggie peers at them curiously when she feels their eyes on her.

“Everything alright, Danvers?” she asks, and Alex nods, feeling their cheeks burn, and Maggie watches them for another minute as they rearrange their papers and clear their throat, eyes flickering up every couple of seconds to see if she’s still watching.

She is.

“I’m going to get a coffee,” Maggie says. “Want to join me?”

Alex shakes their head, words still failing them. Maggie shrugs again, and Alex doesn’t miss the slight droop of her shoulders as she stands, hands shoved in her pockets, and disappears downstairs.

_“It’s like revising for an exam,” their teacher says and yeah, Alex can kind of see that._

_“The more I do it the easier it becomes, right?”_

_“Exactly. Let’s go again.”_

Their library sessions become a common occurrence – or maybe, Alex realises, they’ve always been a regular thing but they’ve never registered just how beautiful – no, studious – Maggie is.

Alex knows when Maggie is likely to join them and makes sure they’ve cleared her half of the table before she gets there.

Maggie knows that on Fridays, Alex has most likely forgotten to restock their bag with working pens and now keeps a small supply in the front of her bag.

Alex knows that on Tuesdays, Maggie has a short one hour slot before she has her community project and without fail there is a sandwich on the table waiting for her.

Maggie knows that on Wednesdays, Alex is usually recovering from their Tuesday all-nighter and makes sure to glare menacingly at anyone who approaches their table, lest they fall victim to a particularly snappy Danvers.

Lucy knows that her friend refuses to believe Maggie might like them back, and gives Alex hell for it.

“Hey, Danvers,” Maggie whispers one afternoon. Alex waves a finger in a _just a minute_ motion, and Maggie waits for them to finish their calculation, tongue between their teeth.

“Sawyer.”

“Would you like to go for coffee sometime?”

Alex blinks. “Oh, thanks, but you know I don’t - ”

“You don’t take breaks when you’re in the library in case someone takes your seat, I know. I didn’t mean now. Whenever.” Maggie makes a vague gesture. “Or. Whatever. You don’t have to.”

“Oh.” Alex blinks again and Maggie stifles a grin. “Yeah. That would be – yeah.”

They bite their lip and try a small smile which Maggie returns, but when Alex doesn’t offer anything Maggie sighs.

“Do you – if you give me your number I’ll text you?”

“Oh! Yeah.” Alex pats their pockets and drops their pen, spilling with it a ruler and their notebook, sending a cascade of notes to the floor. “Shit.”

“Here.” Maggie offers her phone to them instead, and Alex accepts it with a sheepish grin, thumbing in their number and handing it back to her. Maggie fires off a quick text and Alex looks around again for their phone but gives up when it isn’t immediately apparent under their now disrupted piles of work.

“See you later, Danvers,” Maggie says and Alex waves at her automatically, then glances in alarm at their watch to see that six o’clock definitely came around sooner than they expected and they hurriedly shove their work into their bag, filing system forgotten, and leap after Maggie with a startled yelp that has other students shushing them.

\--

“Maggie!”

Maggie gives Alex little more than a glance as she sits down. Alex slides across the three seats between them.

“Maggie, listen - ”

“Look, Danvers, if you didn’t want to go out that’s fine. I get it, okay?”

“I lost my phone,” Alex explains in a hushed voice, glancing up at where the professor has started setting up the lecture. Maggie glares disbelievingly at her notepad. “I don’t get asked on enough dates to ignore someone I actually want to go with.”

What they’ve just said sinks in and they blush, refusing to look away as Maggie finally looks at them.

“You’re a liability, Danvers,” she says eventually, and Alex grins.

“I have to have some flaws.”

Maggie elbows them and grins back.

“Hold on, I’ll give you my new number.” They dig in their pockets and empty two pencil stubs, a bus ticket, a handful of loose change, and a small stack of crumpled business cards onto the desk. Grabbing a pencil and the bus ticket, they scrawl their number on the back and hand it to a thoroughly amused Maggie before tipping everything back into their pocket and smoothly slipping back to their things by the wall.

_“How do you find anything in there?”_

_“It’s a system, Kara. It works when people don’t move my things without my permission.”_

_Kara adjusts her glasses. “Sorry, Alex.”_

_Alex shrugs. “’S fine.”_

_“I won’t do it again, I promise.”_

_“Kara, it’s fine.”_

They’re early.

Thirteen minutes early, to be precise.

They head for their favourite table and angle their chair so they can watch the door for when Maggie arrives.

Maggie is seven minutes late and arrives in a whirlwind of apologies and mussed hair, and Alex has to remind themselves – and when they can talk, Maggie – to breathe as they stand and greet her, because looking as gorgeous as that on a Saturday afternoon should be illegal.

“Sorry,” Maggie says again and Alex waves a hand for the umpteenth time, free hand clenched on the back of their chair.

“It’s really fine,” they say. “There’s still,” they check their watch, “a rough half hour before my morning dose of caffeine expires.”

Maggie gives a short laugh and slings her jacket over the back of the chair opposite Alex, running her hand through her hair, and Alex catches themselves staring as she turns and squints at the board by the counter.

“What’s your poison?”

“Oh,” Alex says, and pats their pockets for their wallet. “Let me - ”

Maggie shakes her head. “It’s on me, Danvers. You can get next time.”

Alex stammers their way through their order at that because _next time they’ve barely even started the this time_ , and Maggie swaggers off to place their orders while Alex navigates returning to their seat much more flustered than they were when they got out of it.

“Here.”

A steaming mug is placed in front of them and they lean down and breathe in the reassuring scent of their next caffeine fix.

“So, Maggie Sawyer: guitarist, biologist, coffee connoisseuse.” Alex picks up their coffee and takes a careful sip, raising their eyebrows across the table at Maggie. “Why biology?”

“Gay penguins,” Maggie says without preamble and Alex carefully puts down their coffee.

“You decided to major in biology because of gay penguins?”

Maggie nods, and runs a finger around the rim of her cup before answering.

“History used to be my thing,” she says. “I wanted to take the white man lens away from history books. Plus: dinosaurs.”

“That’s not gay penguins.”

“I was looking up information to counter the _gays go against science_ argument – particularly the idea that homosexuality isn’t natural – and found gay penguins.”

“They’re not exactly related to dinosaurs, though.”

Maggie takes a sip. “No, but it let me get excited about a subject I could see myself in in a positive light. History becomes exhausting when the outcome for people like me is usually suffering. It’s more of a hobby now. Nature, on the other hand, is amazing and rarely anything other than beautiful.” She shrugs. “I like it.”

Alex leans back in their chair. “And you want to stay in biology after?”

Maggie clears her throat and scrubs at a spot on the table. “No, I – cop.”

“Oh. That’s cool,” Alex says. Maggie starts rearranging her side of the table into neat rows and thumbs a mint out of her pocket. “Have you always wanted to be a cop?”

Maggie tilts her head slightly and takes a deep breath. “What about you?” she says instead, and Alex drops it.

“Bioengineering here,” they say, “stay on for at least a masters and hopefully a PhD, land in a top lab somewhere, save the world one amino acid at a time.”

“Nothing major, then.”

“Nothing major,” Alex agrees with a wink, and takes a gulp of quickly cooling coffee.

“You now know more about me than I know about you,” Maggie says eventually, “so what do you do for fun, Danvers?”

“Hmm.” Alex thinks. “Would you believe me if I said I’m part of an underground organisation dedicated to protecting the citizens of this fine state from aliens?”

Maggie pauses. “No?”

“Good, neither would I.” Alex stands suddenly. “Want to see something?”

Maggie is already grabbing her jacket and draining her coffee, and Alex follows suit.

“Lead on.”

\--

Alex goes out of the café and turns left, feeling rather than seeing Maggie fall into step with them, hands brushing together every now and then as they walk in a comfortable silence, until Alex feels Maggie’s hand ghost over their back as she steps back to let them go past oncoming traffic in front of her and they stiffen, the material of their shirt sliding over their binder in a way that does not happen with bare skin and they suck in a breath.

“Wait.”

They catch her wrist and tug her to a stop on the corner of the street. Maggie searches their face in confusion, and they would have taken confusion as a good sign at any other time than this one, because if she wasn’t going to make a big deal of it, maybe it wouldn’t be a big deal –

“I’m,” they swallow, hard, their tongue heavy in their mouth, and they swallow again. “I’m non-binary.”

“Okay,” Maggie says, and goes to move on but is stopped by Alex’s hand once more.

“Wait,” they say, and Maggie does, patiently. “That’s not a problem? Is it?”

“Danvers.” Maggie slips her wrist out of their grip to hold their elbows instead and waits until they meet her gaze. “It’s not a problem for me if it’s not a problem for you. What pronouns do you use?”

They blink, then feel the words slip out automatically. “They/them.”

“Okay. I use she/her,” Maggie says, and Alex is still paused in bewilderment because shouldn’t this conversation be more complicated? More questions, descriptions, a minor interrogation of some kind to justify their gender is what they always thought would happen if this scenario actually came about –

“Danvers, it’s not a big deal.” Maggie starts walking and Alex blinks again before catching up to her.

“It is to some people,” they say, and immediately cringe because that is absolutely not the way to go on another date with a beautiful woman, it really isn’t –

Maggie pauses again and Alex nearly walks into her. “Yeah, that’s true. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply coming out wasn’t a big deal. It is, and thank you for telling me.”

Alex nods slowly and exhales. “You’re really okay with it?”

Maggie shrugs. “You’re smart. You’re funny. I like you. Yeah, I’m okay with it.”

“You like me?” Alex blurts before they can stop themselves and Maggie laughs.

“Yes, you nerd. I like you.”

“Oh good,” they breathe, “because I like you too.” They beam shyly at her and she grins back, before gesturing in the direction they had been headed in.

“So…now we’ve established that, do you want to keep going?” Maggie says, and Alex pokes her playfully before leading the way.

_“This is the lake.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“This is where I surf.”_

_Kara’s forehead creases. “Surf?”_

_“With this.” Alex gestures to the board tucked under their arm. Kara’s frown deepens._

_“What do you do with a surf?”_

_“You don’t – you know what, just watch.”_

“The lake? I know you spend a lot of time in the library, Danvers, but some of us have actually explored campus - ”

“God, you’re so impatient.” Alex ducks under a low-lying branch and climbs up the steep bank in front of them in a couple of easy strides. Maggie scrambles after them, ignoring their outstretched hand and pulling herself up with the help of a nearby tree.

“Where are we going?”

“I said, you’ll see,” Alex says, and they part a path through the bracken. Sighing, Maggie follows, dimly aware that Alex’s longer frame has carved out an ideal tunnel for her to go through.

They come out in a small clearing. Alex is on the furthest side from where they came out, and Maggie takes a moment to appreciate their silhouette in the early evening sun.

“What do you think?” Alex asks, spinning with their arms open wide.

“It’s nice,” Maggie admits, “but I don’t get why we’re here.”

“Ah.” Alex takes Maggie’s shoulders and guides her to where they had been standing a moment ago. “Look out there.”

Looking down, Maggie immediately reaches an arm back to grab onto Alex’s shirt. “That’s high,” she manages with a small squeak.

“It looks higher than it is.”

“Higher than it should be.”

Alex’s chuckle rumbles against her back and Maggie looks over her shoulder to see their eyes bright and excited.

“I’ve got you, Sawyer. Look at the lake.”

Alex points down to the Lake Lagunita. Maggie reluctantly tears her gaze away from them to follow their finger. Groups of students litter the grass around the lake: some studying, some playing cards, others tossing around a ball, all framed by the backdrop of the university, clouds licking at the hint of the sunset peeking over the tree tops around them, tinted a soft pink against the sparkling water.

“Wow,” Maggie breathes.

“You asked what I do for fun,” Alex says, and Maggie nods. “At home, I surf. I don’t have my board here, but I like coming here on my runs or if I have a spare moment. It’s not the same, but it’s close.” Maggie reaches her free hand up to her shoulder to squeeze their hand.

“Look up,” Alex whispers in her ear, and Maggie does. “When it’s dark, you can see the stars really well from here. Best place I’ve found so far.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

They watch the lake until all but two groups have left, and Alex fiddles with their watch as Maggie lets out a long sigh.

“Can I walk you back to yours?”

Maggie starts, their voice unexpected, and Alex steadies her.

“Yeah,” she says and turns to face them. “Thanks, for showing me this. It was definitely worth the trek.”

“It was hardly a trek,” Alex scoffs, then runs an eye over Maggie. “Though I suppose with such short legs it might feel like one.”

Maggie pretends to glare. “Watch it, you.”

Alex laughs and gestures to the bushes they came from. “After you, Sawyer.”

_“Eliza, why is it human height determines household hierarchy?”_

_“Kara, no - ”_

_“What was that, Kara?”_

_“I - ”_

_Kara squints at where Alex is miming chopping off their head, and adjusts her glasses._

_“How long will it take me to be as tall as Alex?” she asks instead, and Eliza appears in the doorway with a tea towel._

_“Give it a couple of years,” Eliza says. “Why?”_

_“I – Alex said that once I’m taller than her I can choose things but for now she is the superior one and gets to choose the movie,” Kara recites and Alex groans, hitting their forehead with their palm._

_“Oh, did she?” Eliza says and looks at her elder child. “Maybe you should remind Alex that I am taller than her and by her reasoning superior, and therefore_ I _will choose the movie.”_

_“Mom, no - ”_

Maggie points out her block as they amble up to it. They come to a stop and Alex fidgets.

“May I - ?”

When Maggie nods, grinning, they hesitate only a moment more before ducking down and kissing her cheek.

Alex moves away almost instantly until Maggie’s hand catches the back of their neck and brings them back, then her other hand slips to their cheek and they’re kissing, gentle and slow and sweet, and Maggie’s thumb is stroking their jawline, cupping it, and Alex’s hands are finding her elbows and holding her close, and they kiss until they can’t and they separate, noses touching, foreheads touching, breathless.

“Wow,” Alex says, and Maggie laughs and nods, and her hands slides down to her sides. “I – wow.”

“You okay there, Danvers?” Maggie says and Alex just beams at her, giddy, and her heart squeezes because _wow indeed_.

“Wow,” Alex says again, then shakes their head as though to clear it. “I – thank you for today, Maggie.”

They scratch the back of their head. Maggie slips out a mint.

“We should do it again,” she suggests, and Alex nods emphatically.

“Absolutely. Yes. That is a thing that we should do. Soon.” They take a deep breath. “See you Monday?”

“Monday,” Maggie confirms and waves as she slips up the path to the door. Alex waits until she’s sent them another wave from the lobby before spinning on their heel and only just resisting the urge to skip.

They shove their hands in their pockets to stop them punching the air as they head back to their dorm. Grinning, they bound up the stairs, a spring in their step, because _Maggie kissed them._

At the end of their corridor, they pause. There’s a figure sat on the ground, cross-legged, and as they get closer they see that the person is in front of their door, and their grin turns to confusion as they get a better look at them.

“Lucy?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, feedback appreciated.
> 
> Just a heads up that the next chapters might not be posted on ao3 until I get back to uni late September/early October as my home wifi blocks ao3, but roughly weekly updates will still happen on my tumblr (@thesesausagesaremouldy)
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has commented and left kudos!


	4. Allegro molto appassionato: cadenza ad lib.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I snagged our portable wifi thingy so here's chapter 4!
> 
> ft. Alex coming out to Kara, the mushroom incident of 2006 and Scrabble.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who left kudos and comments on the last chapter, I really appreciate it.
> 
> This is at least version seven of this chapter, so feedback especially appreciated.

Lucy looks up. “Hey, Alex.”

“What are you doing out here?” Alex asks. They slip their key into the lock as their excitement starts to ebb at the blank look on Lucy’s face.

“Locked myself out,” Lucy says. She goes straight to the window, bracing herself on the sill and staring out at the street below.

“How long were you waiting?”

Lucy glances at her watch. “Couple of hours, maybe?” she mutters and Alex nearly drops their bag.

“A couple of – Lucy, why didn’t you call me?”

“You were on a date,” Lucy says into the glass. Alex crosses their arms.

“My love life is not so important that I can’t meet you to give you my keys!”

“Your love life hasn’t existed until now. You need all the help you can get.”

It lacks Lucy’s usual snark and Alex drops their arms. “What’s wrong, Luce?”

Lucy glares at a lamppost. “Nothing’s wrong.”

Alex curls up on their bed and watches as their best friend slowly exhales, rubbing away the fog spot.

“Lois called.”

They wait, because it’s never simple when it comes to the Lane sisters, and they can’t yet tell whether this is Lucy missing her sister or hating her.

“She’s in the area for a story and wants to come by.”

Lucy opens her mouth to elaborate but closes it again with a scowl, and does it again, until Alex strides across the room to stand next to lean against the wall next to Lucy, smirking at her.

“Are you aware you’re doing an excellent impression of a goldfish?”

“What I wouldn’t give to have a goldfish’s memory right now,” Lucy mutters.

Alex prods her shin with their socked foot. “You’d be a crap lawyer with a three second memory, Lane.”

Lucy doesn’t answer. She stands rigidly at the window and Alex can hear the slight panic, the squeeze of air from a tight chest, when she finally speaks.

“She misses me,” Lucy says. “I didn’t expect her to miss me. What do I do with her _missing_ me?”

She lets her chin drop to her chest and sighs.

“Before you ask,” she says, voice muffled, “I miss her like I miss a splitting headache. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Alex agrees. “When’s she coming?”

Lucy kicks the wall and doesn’t turn around.  “Monday.”

“Two days’ time, Monday?”

Spinning around, Lucy flings her arms out wildly. “I know! No respect for my social life at all.”

“You have a social life?”

“More than you do, Danvers.”

“Careful, Lane, you’re starting to sound like her.”

Lucy gasps in mock offence. “How dare you.”

Alex shrugs with a smirk. “I speak but the truth.”

Lucy snorts and Alex relaxes, because while they can’t stop the future holding disappointing echoes of a childhood they know Lucy wishes had been different, they can take her mind off Lois with banter and better memories long enough to help her get to tomorrow.

\--

Alex’s excuse is that they can barely manage their own timetable, let alone remember someone else’s.

Lucy’s is that she doesn’t know what she’s stress-eating about but if it conveniently lets the time of Lois’ arrival slip her mind, she’s not going to complain.

Maggie just follows Alex back to their room to borrow a textbook, where she catches sight of what seems to be a minor celebrity making her way to the front door as Alex hunts for the book.

“Is that _Lois Lane_?” Maggie says in disbelief.

Alex shoots up from under their bed, eyes wide. “Shit.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“Stall her,” Alex orders as they dive out the door. They skid into the kitchen on their socks, sliding towards the far wall faster than they meant to and landing against it with a dull _oof_.

“Lane, we have a Code Yellow.”

Lucy pauses in front of the fridge. “Kara flew into something again?”

“What? No.” Alex racks their brain. “Wait – what colour is Lois?”

“Red, I think. Oh, no, that’s ‘Kara finished the ice cream’. Lois is – _Lois_?” Lucy spins around, milk sloshing out of the carton as she aims it at Alex. “Why didn’t you tell me she was here?”

“I’m trying to!”

Alex catches the carton as it’s thrust into their hands by Hurricane Lucy sweeping past them and into the corridor, tearing down it towards their room, collapsing against the door with a grateful sigh as it clicks shut only to jump out of her skin at the voice behind her.

“It’s Little Lucy!”

“You have an inch and three years on me Lois, time for that nickname to retire.”

Maggie sniggers, eyeing the two sisters, then smirking at Lucy as she spots Maggie for the first time.

“Who are you?” Lucy narrows her eyes at her.

“This is Maggie,” Lois jumps in and Lucy crosses her arms.

“Alex’s Maggie?”

“Alex has a Maggie?”

Maggie opens her mouth to properly introduce herself when Alex slides through the door.

“I know, I was surprised too. Who’d have thought it from our oblivious gay Alex Danvers?” Lucy says to the room in general before yelping when Alex jabs their fingers under her ribs.

“Regardless of the accuracy of that title, Maggie is right there, you two. Hey, Lois,” they add with a wave, and Lois drags them into a crushing hug.

“Congratulations on the girl, kid,” Lois says with a wink.

Alex groans. “She’s right there,” they say. “Right. There.”

“And loving every second, Danvers,” Maggie adds.

Lucy chuckles and Alex blushes. “Not you too.”

“Danvers, be nice to your lady,” Lois teases and Alex slaps her arm.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” they grouse, looking meaningfully at Lucy, who starts and nods almost robotically.

“Reservation’s for eight, Lois,” she says. Lois checks her watch and sweeps past her sister, ruffling Alex’s hair as she passes them. Lucy takes a deep breath and straightens her back, pulling her shoulders back and grabbing her keys.

Alex takes a step forward and speaks quietly into her ear. “Text me if you need me, Lane. You got this.”

Lucy nods again and then she’s gone. Alex stares at the door as it closes. Maggie moves to stand next to them.

“So,” she says. “Want to tell me how you know Lois Lane?”

_“I – I don’t want to disappoint you,” they say._

_“Alex,” Kara says, and they flick their eyes up to hers briefly. “You could never disappoint me, Alex.”_

_“I…” Words stick in their throat and they cough, head jarring, and they blink to clear the stars from their eyes. “I’ve tried to set an example for you, I want to always be there for you. I want you to be able to rely on me and be able to tell me anything but I – I – you know I love you, Kara.”_

_“Alex,” Kara says again and the crinkle is making a slow appearance and it momentarily distracts Alex. “What’s going on?”_

_“I’m proud of you,” Alex says, standing, and they twist their hands together, scratch the sweaty skin under their watch face, pull at their collar and take a deep breath. “I’m proud of you, Kara, and I hope you’ll still be proud of me, I hope I can make you proud even if…”_

_“Even if what, Alex?”_

_Kara’s agitation is climbing as quickly as Alex’s and they stare at her with wide eyes as their tongue fumbles the words and catches in their teeth and their jaw clenches and they reach for their sister with shaking hands to pull her into a hug that makes her squirm, their cold nose buried in her warm neck._

Lucy is unusually, but not unexpectedly, quiet when she gets back. Alex doesn’t ask – they don’t have to, with the way she blasts music through their room instead, scribbling notes so furiously that she tears the sheet and starts again. Adding their own scrunched up paper balls to the pile steadily growing around her, Alex keeps the corner of their eye on Lucy, waiting for the slump that comes after a family encounter.

For every day Lucy got on with Lois, there had always been three when she didn’t. It’s a ratio that has only been increasing as she becomes less of the cute kid blindly following Lois around and more aware of how hard it is to live up to a perfect older sister.

The Danvers siblings’ relationship is unique, Alex knows. Not many people suddenly gain a not-a-baby sister who eats more than the rest of the family. Not many people suddenly gain a sister who can _fly_.

More people simultaneously lose a mother and gain a sister, and if you ask Alex, that’s where the difference between them and Lois starts.

Because where Alex knows they would do anything for Kara regardless of the consequences, Lois has only ever supported Lucy when there’s something in it for her, and that rankles with them. They know it bothers Kara too – Kara, who has lost more than either Lucy or Alex can fathom, who sees the pain at being on the edge of her own family that Lucy tries to hide, who is as fiercely gentle with Lucy as she is with Alex, and suggests sibling night should on this occasion become game night for the three of them.

“Kara’s flying over for sibling night tomorrow,” Alex says that evening. “She’s expecting you there.”

Lucy pauses in her writing. “Why?”

“She wants a catch up.”

Lucy hmms quietly. “I’m good.”

“What? Come on, Luce.”

“I’ll be getting in the way.” She fiddles with her pen. “Sibling night is for you and Kara, Alex. I’m not so pathetic as to think I can join in.”

“Lucy,” Alex says. “We both want you there. It’s not pity. We’ve gone from it regularly being the three of us to not at all. To be expected, yeah, but come on, don’t you miss it?”

Lucy doesn’t reply, and Alex wheels their chair over to Lucy’s.

“I’m cooking,” they try. After a moment, Lucy sighs.

“You know the way to a girl’s heart, Danvers,” and Alex whoops, and the ghost of a smile flickers over Lucy’s exhausted features.

_“Alex?”_

_They pull away and hold her at arms’ length. “Gender. Gender is a thing, a complicated thing here on Earth, and I don’t know what it was like on Krypton – hell, maybe this is normal on Krypton,” Alex mutters under their breath and they start pacing again. “Gender. Like, male and female, you know.”_

_Kara nods, and Alex nods in reply, willing the words to somehow jump from their muddled mind to Kara’s._

_“There are others? Apparently. I found them - I was looking…you know I’m gay. You definitely know I’m gay, everyone knows I’m gay,” they mumble and they close their eyes and Kara creeps quietly forward to run a hand down Alex’s back._

_“Breathe, Alex.”_

_“Breathing, I’m breathing.” They rub the back of their neck. “I’m breathing. I’m non-binary.”_

_It comes out faster than they expect and they clap their hand over their mouth and their eyes get wider in terror, in hope, in oh Rao I actually said it._

_Kara is nodding, slowly, and feeling is beginning to come back to them. Their head is starting to pound less, their heart a little more._

_“What does that mean to you?” Kara asks quietly and Alex lets out a shaky breath._

_“I’m, I’m sort of in the middle?” Their voice has shot up an octave and they cough, and shrug. “I don’t really know yet. I’m just not a man, and I’m not always, completely a woman.”_

_“Okay,” Kara says, “okay.” She gathers them into her arms and they collapse into her again and they’re not breathing, because if they breathe, more is going to come out and, and, and –_

“Please tell me this is not what your lab looks like.”

Lucy surveys the small mountain of pots balanced precariously in the sink, surrounded by piles of chopping boards and knives that teeter every time Alex adds something new to the top. Squeezed between the knife block and the fruit bowl is a chemistry textbook, impressively clean for its proximity to the sauce-splattered chef.

“Fewer toxic materials to accidentally knock over here, Lane. That said, you might want to check your cheese.”

Alex spears a broccoli stalk and lets out a satisfied grunt as the knife goes right through. Having salvaged as much of her cheese as possible, Lucy lines up the trash can and lobs the rest towards it, giving a quiet cheer when it goes in cleanly, before rolling her sleeves up and heading back to the sink.

“Isn’t it easier to clear up as you go along?” she asks as she starts a bowl of hot water.

“Well, yeah,” Alex agrees, “but then we end up with the mushroom incident of 2006 and I don’t particularly want to explain burn marks on the ceiling again.” Without looking over their shoulder, Alex sticks the spoon out at Lucy. “Taste.”

Lucy obediently tries the sauce, catching the drip running down her chin with a finger and running her eye over Alex’s spice rack. “Have you got pepper in there?”

Alex nods. Lucy plucks the pepper grinder from the rack and tosses it to Alex, who deftly catches it in their free hand.

“Needs more. And…” She grabs the thyme. “Try that.”

Tongue between their teeth, Alex writes each new addition into the recipe book as together they tweak the sauce to perfection. They slide the bake in the oven as their phone rings and fling the oven glove towards Lucy, answering it to an excitedly babbling Kara waiting to be let in.

\--

“Lucy!”

Kara bounces by the door, hovering until Lucy opens her arms, inviting her in for a hug. Kara launches herself at Lucy with a beaming smile and Alex leans against the door as Lucy gets spun around.

“You can put me down now, Kara,” Lucy squeezes out.

“I brought Scrabble!” Alex groans and Kara shushes them. “It’s not your turn to choose, Alex.”

“But you chose _Scrabble_?”

“I like Scrabble,” Kara shrugs.

“You hate Scrabble,” Lucy says from her corner of the room, eyebrow raised. “You both hate Scrabble because I’m so damn good at it.”

Alex pffts. “You just get the best letters.”

“Or you’ve never beaten me and your competitive ass doesn’t like it, Danvers.”

“Oh, _I’m_ competitive?”

“Break it up, kids,” Kara chimes in and pats Alex on the shoulder. They sigh, but they can see Lucy’s fingers itching towards the Scrabble set peeking out from Kara’s bag and admit that as far as Kara’s ideas go, it’s a pretty good one.

“I’ll get the food, you two set up,” they say and Lucy’s smile is as bright as Kara’s as the pair fold to the floor.

When they get back, three steaming plates on a tray that they’d sworn to Eliza they wouldn’t need, Lucy and Kara are giggling over Kara’s phone.

“What?” Alex asks suspiciously as Lucy’s eyes track them around the room.

_“She’s so beautiful – you should see her dimples, they’re so perfect Kara – did I tell you she plays the guitar? – and she has the voice of an angel, an actual angel,”_ Lucy reads from the screen and it takes a second for Alex to place the words before they’re wrestling the phone from Lucy, cheeks burning.

“Kara!”

“It’s so cute, Alex, I just had to!”

“I’m not _cute_ ,” Alex spits and the phone goes flying, all three of them scrabbling across the floor to reach it and narrowly avoiding knocking over the food.

“The evidence doesn’t lie, Danvers,” Lucy says, mouth full of carpet, Alex’s knee digging into her back. They slide off her when Kara triumphantly snags the phone and sends a worried glance at the tray.

“Mind the food,” she says belatedly. Alex picks up their plate and attacks their pasta, scowling, as Kara rights the Scrabble board and starts her own helping.

Ten minutes later, Alex is already regretting agreeing to play. Lucy is far in the lead, though Kara’s score is still closer to hers than Alex’s, who glares at Lucy as she calmly plucks tiles from the holder and claims another double letter space.

“Quantize.”

Alex groans.

“Oh! Oh!” Kara quickly lays out her next word. “Gherkin. Ha.”

Alex groans again and moodily contemplates their own hand. They toss combinations back and forth in their head, muttering under their breath, squinting at the board, then their hand, then the board, until Lucy lobs a stray tile at their head.

“Whenever you’re ready, genius.”

They glare at her and finally settle on a word. “Joule.”

Lucy records the score and hands Alex the tile bag, and the trio continue until Lucy smugly goes out fifty points ahead of Kara and almost a hundred ahead of Alex, and they give another, lengthy groan.

“Suck it up, Danvers,” Lucy grins as she tips the tiles back into the bag. “Another round?”

“Please, Rao, no.”

Kara laughs at the desperate look on Alex’s face. “We could break for seconds. Are there seconds?”

“There are seconds, Kara. Can’t let you fly home on an empty stomach.” Alex wriggles to their feet and Kara follows.

“How are things in Midvale?” Alex asks as Kara opens the kitchen door and perches on the end of the table.

“Fine,” she says. “Eliza is as busy as ever. It’s really quiet without you there. Neither of us are used to it yet. We miss you.”

Alex hmms at that and aggressively chases a spoonful of sauce around the dish.

“We do miss you.” It’s forceful, and Alex casts a hesitant look at their sister. “That house is too big for the two of us. And most of the time it’s only me, anyway.”

“You’re okay, though?” Alex runs water into the dish and sets it on the side to soak. “You’re being careful at school? Cooking food properly? No problems with your powers?”

“Yes, yes, and no,” Kara says. “We can cope without you, hard as it might be to believe.” At Alex’s pointed look, she sighs. “ _I_ can cope without you. Eliza is a work in progress, I know.”

Alex points at a cupboard. “Can you do drinks?” Kara nods as they continue tidying, working methodically across the surface and humming under their breath. It’s Mendelssohn in their head, of course it is.

“What’s that?”

Alex’s tongue stops clicking against their teeth.

“What’s what?”

“You were humming.” Kara sets three glasses down on the table and waits for Alex to pile the plates on the tray.

“No I wasn’t.”

“You were,” Kara says and Alex shakes their head. Kara stares at them and plays back the humming to herself, nose scrunched in concentration as she tries to place the tune. “Isn’t that - ?”

“Nope.” Alex scoops up the tray.

“It is! That’s the thing you used to play! It is!”

“How the hell do you remember that?” Alex rounds on her, pasta sliding dangerously, and Kara stops in her tracks.

“It wasn’t that long ago,” she protests.

“I haven’t played it in years, Kara. Not since – not since Dad, okay?” Alex glares at her and tries to ignore how gentle the look on Kara’s face is.

“Sorry,” she says quietly. “I didn’t mean to - ”

“Yeah, well.” Alex glares for a moment more and then it softens. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Alex.” Kara chews her lip. “I never meant for you to stop - ”

“I’d have stopped anyway. It just – it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t schoolwork. Cutting it out of my life meant I could concentrate on science and school anyway, so you probably did me a favour, okay?”

Kara nods and Alex sighs, waving her on with their head.

Back in the dorm, Lucy is in the middle of a one-player Scrabble match.

“I thought you’d got lost,” she says without looking up.

“I have X-ray vision, Lucy, I’m not going to get lost,” Kara scoffs. Alex laughs and Lucy grins at her.

“What about the mall?” they chorus.

Kara pouts. “That was one time! And I was excited!”

A still present hunger takes over the room and conversation ceases until Lucy points at Kara with her fork.

“You missed them cracking out the ol’ violin,” she says, gesturing to Alex with her head, and Kara, midway through a mouthful of pasta, lets out a delighted yet strangled squeak.

She turns on Alex, eyes wide. “I thought you said you hadn’t played in years?”

Alex glances at the ceiling, then catches sight of Lucy’s apologetic expression.

“Once,” they say, “I played it once. Just once.”

Kara beams and lights up and Alex just stares. “Are you going to play more? I never got to hear you before, not properly!”

“Yeah, you did.” Alex thinks back to when Kara first arrived. “Wait, no, maybe not.”

“It hurt my ears,” Kara explains and Alex can remember it now, along with the exasperation and the fury at having to drop another thing to accommodate their new sister. It’s a wonder she remembers enough of the Mendelssohn to recognise it, really. They’re sure their violin was exiled to the garage within the first week of Kara-caused life upheaval.

“I was always surprised you were fine to play bass,” Lucy says.

Kara pffts. “That was years later. It was a matter of adjusting to this planet and your need to play tiny, screechy instruments.”

“Hey!” Alex protests. Lucy and Kara send them an identical look. “Fine, fine. I admit the violin can get a little high-pitched - ”

“If it got any higher, it would be in orbit,” Kara says with the same head tilt and in the same tone as when she demands the last potsticker. “And as someone who has fallen through this planet’s atmosphere, I can tell you that that is very high.”

“Hey, Danvers,” Lucy says. “You should try that one on Maggie. ‘Did it hurt when you fell to Earth?’”

Kara high-fives her. Alex’s jaw twitches and they sigh.

“Six year olds, the pair of you,” they mutter even as they tug Kara back to the floor by the hem of her pants. Kara takes a gulp of air and giggles, which sets Lucy off again. Alex’s heart warms at the sight and lets them laugh it out, happy for once to be the butt of the joke if it gets their favourite people laughing.

“Now, Al,” Kara eventually wheezes. “The most important question of the night: do you have any ice cream?”

_“Do you want me to call you something different?” Kara says into their ear and they tense, and she rubs their back again. “Alex, it’s okay.”_

_“They?” they murmur shakily and it takes a moment for it to reach Kara._

_“Okay. I can do that, Al.”_

_They sniff. “I like Al.”_

_“Al,” Kara says again, and that makes Alex break. It makes them break and the tears come, and with it a stream of senseless babble that they pour straight into Kara’s chest and she soaks it up, she takes it, she dries their tears like they used to do for her after those nightmares, those screams, when she needed a big sister -_

_“I’m sorry,” they say, and Kara pulls back sharply._

_“What are you talking about?”_

_“This relationship, this, us, we’re sisters.” They falter over the last word. Kara pokes them gently._

_“I mean, I’m still getting used to human culture, but I think the bond between siblings can be just as strong, right?” Kara smiles softly and Alex gives her a watery smile in return._

_“You don’t mind?” they whisper._

_“Alex, I’m just happy you’ve found something that fits you. And thank you for trusting me with this.”_

Alex can hear the Mendelssohn as vividly as if they were playing it themselves, and it sinks into their bones, all swooping strings and thundering timpani as they pull out their music and let the book fall open to the first page.

They stare at the music for long enough that the notes dip out of focus.

They know they need it. The need is vibrating through their entire body, has been for hours, days now, but they turned it into the energy needed to support Lucy, but now?

Now it’s making their hand inch towards their case.

The violin comes out.

The bow.

Music flattened.

Pencil.

The cold plastic of the chin rest bites into their throat and Alex gulps. They take a deep breath, and another, eyes open, eyes closed, then they let the craving take hold and they play.

It’s bad.

It’s beyond bad.

Haphazard tuning, clipped strings, missed notes.

It’s bad, so bad, so awful, so wrong, so failed, so imperfect.

Yet.

It builds and it builds inside them and it’s warm and it’s soft and it holds and it drives and then they’re flying, the music is flying, out through them, out into the room, beyond the room and the notes and the worn wood and it feels good.

Good.

So good, so pleasing.

Such an ache, a good ache, the ache of an old friend, a long-awaited reunion, the burn of a heart longing for its soulmate, a soul.

Any soul.

A soul with a story and a soul searching for its purpose.

A confused purpose.

A new purpose, purpose redefined.

Imperfect purpose, imperfect life, struggles and pain and sorrow intertwined with the sound of joy, laughter and hope, wet with tears and alight with love and oh, oh, it feels good to hear the music, hear their music, hear their self.

Them.

Alex.

Alex Danvers: scientist.

Alex Danvers: sibling, child, and friend.

Alex Danvers: violinist, a spinner of song, a maker of music, and oh, _oh_ , it feels _good_.


	5. Allegro molto appassionato: presto

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ft. potstickers, puppies and pancakes
> 
> Content warnings for : misgendering, transphobia, Eliza being Eliza
> 
> Sky, thank you again for all your help, especially tonight, with getting this chapter out.
> 
> Lol weekly updates didn’t happen, did they. Thanks for your patience and to those who left kudos, notes, and comments, thank you so much.This chapter has been a toughie to write and I appreciate every single one of you and would love to know your thoughts on this.

When Alex had put down their violin, it had been with the intention of never picking it up again. Then they had packed it on a whim for Stanford and it had taken one lapse of control for it to open this can of worms that, quite frankly, they could do without.

Frustration doesn’t begin to describe it. Their technique comes back to them easily enough but their fingers, once agile on the strings, stumble more than they should and it should not get them as mad as it does but the scratch of their bow gets nowhere near the sound of their best in their ears. It catapults a giant red F into their mind when they need As, only As, because with winter break approaching faster than any of them expected, Alex just doesn’t have the bandwidth to deal with anything less than perfection.

_“There’s, um.” Alex flicks through the piece. “This bit here. I can get it right on its own but not when I play the whole movement.”_

_“Let me hear.”_

_Alex chooses a starting place and begins, gritting their teeth as they enter the ricochet bowing, and their teacher nods._

_“There’s a stutter. You tried playing the - ”_

_“The measures before and after, yeah. I tried it with more than just one measure but it – there’s – it’s still there.”_

_Their teacher nods again and Alex rubs the pad of their bow, holding back a snap. A week of not being able to iron out the blip has left them irritated, practicing longer than usual, metronome on its loudest setting, stamping along to it until Eliza had threatened to tape down their feet._

_“Try it again, slowly.”_

_It is still there. Not budging. Not going smoothly across the interval. Their bow is catching every damn time and Alex gets closer and closer to the stand in frustration until they finish with a huff._

_“You’re panicking.”_

_“What is there to_ panic _about?” Alex splutters._

_“You tell me,” says their teacher. “You’re the one doing it.”_

_Alex throws their head back. “But I’ve practiced it so much!”_

_“Then that’s your problem.” Alex stares disbelievingly at their teacher and she laughs. “Focus on another section and go back to that one.”_

_“Isn’t that…giving up?” says Alex slowly. They refuse to be beaten by some dead German guy._

_“It’s using your practice time efficiently. Acknowledging it still needs work but moving on to something else that does too.”_

Deadlines, Alex decides, they can deal with. That’s the issue with their return to the violin because progress is somewhat measurable when you have a concert to prepare for, whereas playing for fun comes without that pressure.

Logically, the absence of pressure should make mistakes more tolerable. Instead, it just serves to drive Alex more towards the punk rock of their early high school days with each poorly executed phrase sending a jab of maybe anger, maybe shame, maybe both ricocheting through their heart. _Imposter_ thumps in their ears as they play, music faculty practice room more private than their dorm room but still not entirely soundproofed.

It’s safer to eliminate the violin from their timetable and remove anything on their playlist that might tempt them – to allow their studying to step up a notch, they tell themselves. Their violin returns to under their bed and Alex hides themselves away in a private study room with Nirvana and their chemistry notes for company, deciding to stick to what they know: science.

_“Mom! What did you make today?” asks Alex eagerly, taking the shopping bags from Eliza and dragging them to the kitchen. They eventually give up on carrying them all at the same time and run them to Jeremiah one by one. “Did you fix the problem with the labelling?_

_Eliza chuckles as Alex tugs the next load from her arms. “We did, yes.”_

_“How did you do it?” Alex shouts back. They hop up onto the counter and wait for Eliza to drop her purse on the table and shrug off her coat._

_“Off the counter, young lady,” Eliza reprimands as she kisses Jeremiah hello. Alex makes a gagging noise from behind them and she pulls them into a hug, peppering their forehead with kisses until they push her away._

_“How did you fix the proteins, Mom?”_

_“It was just a matter of finding the right molecule,” says Eliza, and the same look appears in her eye as when Alex tries to talk to their classmates about biology and chemistry and space. Especially space. It’s that look of_ this is really cool, trust me _, and_ they found a new moon, look! _, but also, in Alex’s case, the niggling whispers of_ nerd _, of_ go away, Alex, that’s boring _, of_ why do you like science so much, freak? _._

_But as Eliza breaks down her day’s work for them, complete with diagrams and the symbols Alex is learning to recognise as biologist shorthand, there is none of that fear in their mother’s expression. There’s only pride and passion, and as Jeremiah chimes in with a question that has Eliza reaching for another sheet of paper, Alex looks around the table at the two people who will never call them a freak for wanting to know more or for wanting to explore the universe from their textbooks and back yard._

A shared library table with Maggie becomes neighbouring study rooms and breaks on the bench outside the library entrance as they scarf down sandwiches and get refills of coffee. The sandwiches are at Maggie’s insistence after Alex had emerged from their room looking like they hadn’t eaten all day (“I had breakfast,” they’d insisted, “and anyway, I was studying.”).

“Is that even on the course?” Maggie hands Alex a fresh coffee and slides onto the bench opposite them. They lift the cup to take a sip just as they catch sight of a particularly interesting paragraph and leave it halfway to their mouth until it tilts and their notes are covered in _black, one sugar_.

Alex swears and throws a collection of sheets at Maggie as they jump up and desperately pat at the coffee.

“Alex, this is the senior year reading list,” Maggie says slowly.

“It was the senior year reading list,” they correct. “Now it’s covered in a coffee and illegible. You should have a look at it, actually. But maybe not that one.”

“Why?”

“There’s a section on genetics you might like.”

“No,” Maggie says, “why are you reading the senior list?”

Alex makes a face at the front of their now coffee scented shirt. “For a broader understanding of the subject area.”

“Broader than our own reading list?”

Their gaze shifts and they sit back down with a last swipe of the table. “Mom has a lot of that. I’d read at least half before I got my place here.”

Maggie mutters something under her breath that sounds like _of course you had_ , and Alex shrugs and opens up another journal.

\--

“Eat.”

“I have.”

Lucy looks unimpressed. “Coffee and cookies does not constitute eating, Danvers.”

“I ate them, didn’t I?” Alex mutters into their textbook.

“You inhaled them. I was there.”

“Then what’s the matter?”

“The matter,” Lucy says, pulling Alex and their chair away from their desk despite their protests, “is that you can’t sit exams on no proper food. I’ve ordered pizza, and you are going to eat some if I have to feed you myself.”

Alex snorts. “Cute.” They drag their chair towards the desk and Lucy stops it with her foot.

“What’s cute is that your best friend has spent seven years telling you to take breaks and all it takes is a pretty girl to get you to see sense.”

“Don’t sell yourself short Lane. You’re not exactly hard on the eyes.”

Lucy rolls her eyes. “Don’t change the subject. Do I even want to know how Maggie got you to roll over?”

“I didn’t _roll over_ ,” Alex says, running their tongue along their lip then biting it. “She was eating; it’s polite to keep someone company while they’re eating, so I joined her.”

“Company, is that what they’re calling it these days?” Lucy mutters. Alex smirks.

“You’re just jealous, Lane.”

“Jealous of what? A lanky nerd and their equally nerdy _companion_?”

Alex snatches up their pillow and throws it at Lucy, who ducks it with a muffled yell and pulls Alex’s hood over their head. They shuck it and glare at her, picking up their pen and resolutely going back to their work.

“Food, Danvers,” Lucy says sternly as she takes the pen from them. They sigh, but when the pizza arrives they demolish their half before Lucy gets to her second slice.

“I won’t say I told you so - ”

Alex waves a hand and swallows their last mouthful. “Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Lane.”

Lucy slides her laptop over to them and nudges them with her foot. “Choose a show.” Alex looks confused and Lucy resists the urge to face-palm. “You need a break. Choose a show to watch. One episode and we’ll go back to the books.”

Grudgingly, Alex sinks back into the pillows and opens the laptop. “Fine.”

\--

Alex doesn’t mean to stop when they pass the bar on the way back from the library. Through the window they can see Maggie in the middle of a set, looking untroubled by work and unhounded by stress. They duck in, just for a moment, and forego a drink to lean against the pillar by the door and watch her.

Maggie doesn’t see them. She looks carefree, plucking and strumming and singing as confidently as she ever has and a stab of jealousy makes Alex brace themselves against the wall.

Her playing is perfect.

They’re not a guitarist, though chords and independent hands aren’t a foreign concept to them, but Maggie, sitting on the stool in the low light, singing, is playing with the most solid technique, the most fluid of movements and still the most honest of voices and it is.

It’s perfect.

Maggie sacrifices neither notes nor emotion for the sake of the other in a way that Alex has never been able to do.

She’s telling _her_ story with all its nuances. She’s playing _her_ music with all its flourishes.

Music shouldn’t be a competition but when they have so far to go to get to Maggie’s level, Alex can’t help but feel they’ve already lost.

\--

Their first paper goes well, their second goes horribly, and they end up back in their room, nursing a beer and staring unseeingly at their physics notes.

As Lucy returns from her own paper, they offer her one of the six-pack tucked under their desk and she takes it with a frown.

“I won’t ask, then,” she says. She pulls on a hoodie and flops down on her bed, stretching out and plugging in her phone. “Two down. Fuck knows how many left.”

“Five,” Alex mutters.

“Hi Fuck, I’m Lucy.”

“You’re so funny, Lane.”

“It’s why you keep me around.” Lucy cracks open her beer and takes a long drink. “I’m surprised you’re not still going.”

Alex slowly tips forward until their forehead is resting on their desk. “I am. You caught me on a break.”

“Alex Danvers doesn’t take voluntary breaks.” Lucy frowns and sits up. “What’s up, kid?”

“First of all, Lane, we’re the same age - ”

“Three months older but whatever - ”

“ – and second of all, you’re the one who gets on my case about healthy study habits and all that shit.”

Lucy waves her beer at them with a wise nod. “I am. But Danvers in study mode I can deal with. Danvers in miserable drunk mode I can also deal with but not when I need to get work done too. So, I ask again: what’s up, kid?”

They mumble unintelligibly into their sleeve and Lucy hmms.

“Didn’t get that.”

“College was a crap idea.”

Lucy swings her legs off her bed and pads over to Alex’s, shuffling towards the end of the bed near their desk and putting her chin by their elbow. “Expand?”

Alex lets out a long sigh and fumbles their hand around their desk for a new pad of paper, head still on _Electricity and Magnetism_. “I’m in a place where I can study as much as I want and I go and fail the first biochem final we’re given.”

“Alex,” Lucy says reasonably, “you’ve failed all of four tests in your life.”

“Five now,” they say, and Lucy pokes them gently.

“This isn’t like you, Doctor Confidence.”

“I’m not a doctor yet.”

“You will be one day, and it’s the easiest thing to call you seeing as you’ve scorned all other titles except Hoarder of the Water Guns.”

“Oh, that’s been scorned. It was Kara’s suggestion. I like Ruler of the Universe.”

“Nope, that’s mine.” Lucy takes another swig of beer. “I should get it on a t-shirt.”

\--

“Do you bring all the girls here?”

Alex smirks. “Just the pretty ones.”

“Danvers, you think I’m pretty?” Maggie clasps her hand to her chest and playfully bats her eyelids. “I’m touched.”

Laughing, Alex pulls her in for a kiss and gets it, Maggie’s hand between their chests, which she turns around so her palm is right on top of Alex’s thumping heart. Alex nibbles her lip and Maggie moans into their mouth, sucking in a tiny breath, and her nose brushes theirs and their thumb rubs circles on the bare skin above her hip as they pull apart.

“I’m going to miss that,” breathes Maggie. Alex places a peck on her lips and tugs her further into the trees. They’re by the lake, like many other people, celebrating the end of a semester that feels like it’s flown past. A boundary of oaks gives them some privacy from the rest of the student population skimming stones and having picnics, enough privacy to not care about who might see them kiss, and Alex rummages in their bag to pull out a football, tossing it to Maggie who spins it in her hands.

“You play?” she asks. Alex jogs backwards a few paces and holds up their hands, ready for the catch.

“Only with my dad,” they say, and Maggie rolls her shoulders before sending a perfect ball to Alex. They catch it with little difficulty and watch Maggie fall into a similar position as she waits for the return. “You?”

“At school,” Maggie squeezes out before she’s forced to dive to the left to scoop Alex’s wayward throw. “Your dad not teach you to throw properly?” she teases.

Alex bends low to catch Maggie’s next ball. “Just want to keep you on your toes, Sawyer. Don’t want you getting bored.”

“You’d never bore me.” Maggie sprawls to the right, just managing to hold on to the ball as Alex sends it the other way. “But I imagined this as a throw-around, not a tryout of some kind. If I’d known you intended to put me through my paces, I’d have worn other jeans.”

“Mm.” Alex licks their lips and doesn’t hide their checking out Maggie, clad in a form-fitting shirt and skin-tight jeans, trademark black boots, and leather jacket resting on their bags on the grass between them. “I like those jeans.”

“Oh, you do?” Maggie spins and stretches with her back to Alex, throwing the ball over her shoulder, smirking when she hears the thump of ball on human and turns back to see Alex on the floor, winded.

They jump to their feet and glare at her. “Not fair, Sawyer.”

Maggie shrugs. “Can’t help your levels of gay being so damn high.”

“You’re one to talk, Miss Flannels and Leather Jacket.”

“I don’t see you complaining,” says Maggie, and Alex is in front of her in three long strides, ball in one hand and the other hooking around Maggie’s waist once more as they run their tongue over their top lip.

“Oh, I’d never complain about the way you look,” they say, voice husky, and it’s just as well they’re holding Maggie because her knees almost buckle. The football falls to the floor as they lock their lips onto her jaw and her arms wrap around their shoulders and they move up to her mouth, the kiss deepening in a cascade of gripped shirts and feverish touches.

\--

“When are you coming back?” asks Maggie. She hands Alex a sandwich and joins them on the log, legs pressed against each other.

“Not sure.” They take a bite and raise it to Maggie in a toast. “Thanks. You?”

“As soon as I can. I want to get ahead on next semester and it’s not easy working in that house.”

Alex cracks the lids off two beers and passes one to Maggie. “You have anything other than work planned?”

“Not especially,” says Maggie. “There’s usually at least one family gathering. Lots of music, food, you know the thing.”

“Yeah.” An image flashes in Alex’s mind of the last time the small Danvers family had had all its members around the same table.

A lifetime ago.

A very different lifetime.

\--

Bringing their Ducati to college was the right decision for two reasons: one, it makes usually cool Maggie stumble at the sight of Alex in their leathers and two, it lets them trail Eliza’s car in relative peace on the way back to Midvale for winter break.

They pull up to the house to a mostly unpacked car. They linger, straddling their bike. It’s calm, the distant sounds of the other three chattering muffled by their helmet, and for the briefest moment they imagine Jeremiah’s boom mingling with Kara’s giggling.

“Oi, Danvers! Some of this is your shit too, you know!”

Lucy’s shout jostles them into action and they hide a grimace in the helmet. Without answering, they join Lucy at the trunk and hoist a bag onto their back as Eliza appears in the doorway.

“Dinner on the table in half an hour, girls,” calls Eliza, and Alex can feel Lucy and Kara’s eyes on them as they grab the last suitcase and lug it silently up the stairs. They can last one evening without reacting. They can.

They can’t.

Or, they nearly do.

They grit their teeth to each _Alexandra_ , because Kara keeps interjecting with _Alex_ , without fail.

They refill their wine glass as Eliza launches into how pleased she is to have _her girls_ home, because Lucy thanks her for having her again and it diverts the attention, just for a bit.

Alex’s knee jiggles nervously as they push their food around their plate and take another gulp of wine. They reach for the bottle again but Kara slips the water jug into their grip instead and they scowl. By this point, Eliza is explaining to Lucy how she’s got back into cooking with Alex away and Lucy is nodding politely, tightly smiling, and Alex is static, all static, buzzing and incessant and thumping through them.

Abruptly, they stand. Eliza barely looks up and Alex’s heart lurches.

“Thanks,” they say robotically, and take their plate to the sink, letting the cold of the kitchen surface shock them into registering the silence behind them at the table.

\--

Their wetsuit is exactly where they left it and they roll it on, up their thighs, up their torso, over their chest. The neoprene is as good as any binder, as good as any hug, solid and even pressure clinging to their skin even as it crawls with whispers of _she_ and _her_ and _daughter_.

They stuff the nearest warm clothes in a bag and scrabble in their desk for their keys and trip downstairs to sort through the garage for their surfboard, tucked in the far corner. It’s still carrying the scent of wax, the tang of salt water lodging itself in the back of their throat along with a lump that they’ve only just noticed.

Slamming the door behind them, they aim for the lake, getting faster until they’re running down the road, faster and faster until they’re on the sand, faster and faster and faster as they strap into their leash and run into the water and then –

The blissful silence of ducking under.

Underwater peace that they haven’t had in so long.

They surface and paddle out, and Rao the lake can be a dangerous place but just then it is the only thing in the world that can match the rawness of their heart as it rips, again, at the happiness that feels so out of their reach.

_“I told Kara I’d watch you.”_

_They don’t see her at first, sitting on the wall with her ankles crossed._

_“I don’t need watching. I definitely don’t need_ you _watching me.”_

_Lucy flinches._

_“Alex.”_

_“What don’t you understand about ‘fuck off and leave me alone’, Lane?” Alex hisses._

_They rip their leash from their ankle and snatch their bag from Lucy’s loose grip. She slides off the wall to land in front of Alex. They ignore her._

_“Alex, I know, I know you’re hurting - ”_

_“You know_ nothing _about how I feel.”_

_Lucy reaches out a hand and Alex steps back and at last locks eyes with their best friend._

_“That’s not – Alex, you’re my friend. You’re my best friend. I want to help, but – but I don’t know how to help beyond being here and you don’t have to tell me anything, okay, but I can’t leave you while you’re like this.”_

_“You can help by bringing back my dad.”_

_They swallow furiously and fight the tightness of their chest and glare at Lucy._

_They glare at her more ferociously than they ever have and she closes her mouth with a quiet click. Her eyes burn with what could be tears but that’s not_ fair _, how can she cry when they can’t, when it’s their dad, Jeremiah, their dad who is_

_he’s_

_oh, God, he’s_

_dead._

_“I can’t do that, Danvers, I’m sorry.”_

_He’s dead and he’s not coming back._

“I told Kara I’d watch you.”

They barely hear Lucy over the echoing roar of the water in their ears.

“I don’t need watching.”

Lucy hands them a hoodie. They take it from her and peel the top half of their suit away from their skin to shrug it on. The hood is a poor substitution for the muffledness of the waves but it’ll do, they decide, and yank their sneakers on.

Kneeling down, Lucy knocks their shivering hands out the way to tie their laces for them. Tilting their head back, Alex sighs and lets her finish. They curl their hands into fists to try to warm their fingertips and start the walk home, not waiting for Lucy to catch up.

They walk in silence. It’s dark when they get back to the house and the curtain in the front room swishes as they unlock the door. Nostalgia hits them like a slap to the face when they lay tired eyes on Kara, two steaming mugs of hot chocolate in hand.

Hot chocolate downed, Alex stumbles into the shower and blasts it red hot, scrubbing every inch of their skin in an attempt to rid themselves of as much disgust as possible. They’re calmer after surfing – they always are – and though the hatred is less than it was, washed into the never-ending depths of the lake, it still pulses through them.

\--

Music comes floating down the stairs to the attic as they step out of the bathroom and they follow it. Once upon a time, the spare room had been just that, but it soon became Lucy’s part time room and is now covered in knick-knacks and photos, medals hanging from the door handle and certificates on the walls. Kara looks up as Alex slips in the door and throws a piece of popcorn at them.

They get caught between ducking and going for the catch with their mouth and end up being hit in the eye. They eat it anyway and make a grab for the bowl as Kara snorts with laughter.

“I thought you were supposed to be the coordinated one, Al!”

“Shut it, Michelangelo.” Alex dives carefully onto the bed to settle between Lucy and Alex on Lucy’s bed. Lucy’s laptop is already open with the start screen of The Incredibles muted.

Kara groans through a mouthful of popcorn. “Seriously? Still with the nicknames?”

“Listen, that nickname is genius,” Alex informs her.

“I’m a Kryptonian, not a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.” Kara pouts and burrows under her blanket, wriggling into Alex’s lap and squealing when Alex tickles her. Batting at Alex’s hands, she squirms across the bed and nearly knocks Lucy off, making her grab the blanket. The three of them spend the next few minutes hovering precariously half-on, half-off the bed until Alex, with the longest legs, manages to tug them all back into the pillows.

“You need a bigger bed for the three of us,” gasps Alex.

“That’s what she said,” smirks Lucy, and Alex elbows her.

“No sex jokes with my sister in the room, Lane.”

“I’m sixteen, Al.” Kara hits play before anyone can say anything else and Alex continues muttering under their breath about staying appropriate for the age of the room as Lucy turns the volume up to drown them out and they roll their eyes.

Maybe the vacation would be okay after all.

\--

Their mouth is dry.

They flit between scared at disrupting the somewhat awkward peace that has fallen over the house and defiant at Eliza’s insisting on ignoring that Alex had even come out at all faster than Kara speeds to the puppies she sees on the way to school.

They clear their throat. “Mom.”

Eliza doesn’t put down her book. “Alex.”

“I want to ask you something.” They clear their throat again and rearrange the papers on the coffee table.

“Yes?”

“Could you – please could you put down the book?” Exasperation creeps unbidden into their voice and they sigh. Calm. They have to stay in control if they’re going to get through this conversation. With a click of her tongue, Eliza slips in her bookmark and sets the book on the arm of the couch, taking off her reading glasses and folding them, looking up at Alex. Mild annoyance sits in the crease of her forehead and Alex’s heart rate picks up. “Thank you. I – do you think you could try and use _she_ less when I’m here? Please.”

Eliza rubs at her forehead. “You’re not still going on about these pronouns, are you? I thought college would have put that straight.”

“You don’t have to use _they_.” They clench their jaw. “Just don’t call me _she._ ”

“Alex, you know I support you, but don’t you think this phase has gone on long enough?”

“It’s not a phase, Mom.”

They hold Eliza’s gaze, daring her to look away first. She does, and leans back into the cushions, closing her eyes.

“I don’t know who you are anymore.”

“I’m me. I’m still me.” Alex swallows and pulls their sleeves over their hands.

“But you’re not, are you? You’re non-binary, or whatever it is.”

“That doesn’t mean I’ve changed. I’m still me.”

Eliza’s eyes open. “So you’ve not changed, but you want me to change how I talk about you?”

Alex gestures wildly. “You’re the one who says you support me!”

“I _do_ , Alex, but I can’t deny the fact that you are my _daughter_. You will always be my little girl, and you can’t expect me to just get over raising my eighteen-year-old daughter who suddenly decides that she isn’t!”

“You’re not even trying!” They stand and pace in front of the couch, alternating between running a hand through their hair and shoving their hands in the back pockets of their jeans. “Do you hear yourself? The things you say, the way you say them, do you even know how much they hurt me? Do you even care?”

“Alex, of course I care, I love you - ”

“Do you? Because it sounds like you just want the idea of your daughter but not the person attached.”

“Alex, that is not fair - ”

“What’s not fair is ignoring what I’m saying! I’m not – I’m not asking for you to – to suddenly be okay with this, but, but you could just try, you could try…” Alex’s jaw twitches. “You don’t even have to say _they_. Just my name. Just Alex.”

Calm. Stay calm.

Eliza looks at them for a long time before answering.

“I don’t understand what this is going to accomplish. These aren’t natural things to say, Alex. It’s not normal language.”

Fuck it.

“We live with an alien!” Alex shouts. “When has language every been normal here?”

“Don’t make this about Kara, Alexandra.”

“I’m not making this about – you know what?” Alex kicks the back of the old armchair in frustration and turns to leave. “Forget I said anything.”

\--

Alex shuffles into the tent on their knees and immediately groans.

“Kara, we’re going to overheat if you sleep with all those blankets.”

A dishevelled Kara sticks her head out of the bundle of blankets and pouts. “They’re comfy. And it’s cold.”

“Not cold enough for what, seven?” Alex puts down the laptop, DVD cases, and potsticker boxes cradled to their chest. Kara snatches the potstickers before they can say anything else and they smile affectionately as she shoves three into her mouth with a contented sigh.

“Wawewashing?” she says and they raise their eyebrows at her. She swallows. “What are we watching?”

“Roadkill,” says Alex promptly and Kara whines as they start loading up the movie.

“Do we have to?”

“My turn to choose,” says Alex, pulling on their fluffy socks and unzipping their sleeping bag. “Ready?”

“No.” Kara pouts again and folds her arms. “What do you have against a good old romantic comedy?”

“Saps in love? No thanks.” Alex tosses Kara a cushion and hits play. “Just scream into that. You can choose the after-film.”

_“What’s_ she _doing here?” Alex spits. They’re sitting defensively in the opening of their tent, flashlight pointing at the grass where Kara shifts from foot to foot, blue blanket wrapped around her shoulders like a cape._

_“Alex,” says Jeremiah warningly and they scowl. “I’m sure you can share your tent for one evening, can’t you?”_

_“No.” Alex folds their arms. “She can have her own tent. This is_ mine. _”_

_“Alex,” he says again. “Be nice to your sister. She just wants to join in with you.”_

_“Well, I don’t want her to.”_

_Alex rolls back into their tent and slams the canvas as much as it can be slammed in the night breeze, squirreling down into their sleeping bag and turning over, away from the door._

_“Go away,” they shout when they hear the scrape of the zip._

_Jeremiah crawls into the tent beside them._

_“She ruins everything, Dad,” whispers Alex._

_“She wants to be with her big sister, Al. You don’t have to do anything differently. Just let her see how you spend your evenings out here.”_

_“I’m not choosing another movie even if she gets scared,” they say after a minute of deliberation. Jeremiah nods._

_“Okay. Maybe you could play something less scary afterwards for her. You don’t want her to have nightmares, do you?”_

_That’s not fair. He knows they hate Kara’s nightmares. They hate seeing her scared of everyone (but they love that it’s everyone except them) and they hate hearing her cry._

_“Fine.”_

Kara falls asleep in the middle of _The Little Mermaid_ and Alex turns it off not much later, tidying away their snacks and easing Kara down onto her pillow. Stretching, their toes hit the end of the tent and they make a mental note to investigate a replacement tent now that they’re both at the tail end of their teenage growth spurts.

Feverish snuffling wakes them just as the morning sun is starting to pour through the canvas and they crack open an eye to see Kara twitching and moaning in a way that means only one thing.

Nightmares.

Kara sits up with a start and Alex follows a second later, hand ghosting Kara’s back as she blinks, quickly, teeth chattering through stuttered breaths as she gets her bearings.

“Kara? Kara, hey, it’s okay, it’s okay.” Alex rearranges them so they’re sitting up opposite Kara’s ashen face, tear tracks still visible on her cheeks, and they hold their hands out, palm up, waiting for Kara to place her hands in theirs when she’s ready. “It’s okay. I’ve got you,” they murmur and Kara hiccups as she raises wide eyes to Alex’s concerned ones.

She gives Alex her burning hands and they run their thumbs over the backs of them. “Sorry,” she breathes, and Alex gives her a stern look.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for, Kar.” Kara doesn’t reply and Alex tilts their head to the side as they survey their sister. “You’re still having them?”

“Mhmm.” Kara sniffs and drags her forearm across her eyes. “They’re mostly okay.”

Alex eyes her and moves to sit next to her, pulling her into their side. “You know, if you ever need to talk one through, I’m only a phone call away.”

Kara waves a hand. “It’s okay. I’m okay,” but she snuggles closer anyway and tugs the blanket up to her chin. They stay tucked together until Alex’s leg has fallen asleep and Kara’s stomach rumbles and she rolls away from them with an “oops.”

“Right.” Alex shakes out their leg and rummages around for their hoodie. “Pancakes?”

Kara lets out a soft “yessssss,” and Alex laughs, leaving the tent, narrowly missing a guy rope and hearing Kara trip over it on her way out. They turn around and laugh harder, walking backwards to the backdoor as Kara scrambles up and glares at them, before running at them and suddenly they have an armful of hungry Kryptonian and they stagger to keep them both upright.

“Jeez, someone’s been eating their greens,” they mutter and Kara swats them.

“Rude!”

\--

As Maggie’s face fills their screen, they sigh and sink back into their chair.

“You are a sight for sore eyes,” they inform her and she laughs, the sound tinny over the speakers but still as Maggie as it is in person.

“Hello to you too, Danvers.”

“How’s Blue Springs, Nebraska?” Alex asks.

Maggie screws up her face and blows out a long breath. “As small and as boring as always. How’s sunny Midvale?”

“Not so sunny.” Alex picks at the stickers covering their keyboard and tugs their hoodie further round their shoulders. Maggie watches them with her quirked smile, eyes soft and slightly pixelated.

“How’s it being back with your sister?”

Alex’s face lights up. “Yeah, really nice. It’s nice to have peace at college but it’s nice having an excited puppy follow you around.”

“You have a dog?”

“No, just Kara,” Alex chuckles. “But she brings home strays all the time knowing full well we can’t keep them because of Mom’s allergies and then she looks at me with puppy dog eyes and then _the dog_ looks at me with puppy dog eyes and God it is so hard to say no to that expression but how am I supposed to take a dog back to Stanford?”

Maggie stifles a grin. “That’s cute, Danvers.”

“It’s a fucking nuisance, that’s what it is.” Their heart isn’t quite in the retort and they groan playfully. “Maggie, I swear she names them all on sight.”

“You must have a shelter nearby.”

“We practically have a loyalty card for it,” mutters Alex.

“Can’t you just tell Kara to not bring them home?”

“You try telling Kara to not do something.”

“Didn’t have you pegged as a soft sibling, Danvers,” teases Maggie.

“I’m not _soft_ ,” they say indignantly as the screen dips and they suddenly see half the keyboard and the tops of Maggie’s thighs. A stream of another language follows and then Maggie’s face is back, cheeks tinged red.

“Sorry about that.”

“Not at all,” Alex says. “I was enjoying the view. Everything okay?”

Maggie gives a tight smile. “Yeah, my aunt was asking who I was talking to.”

“Oh, is this the big reunion?”

Maggie’s eyes flick away from the camera. “Yeah. That.”

“Al?”

Alex makes an apologetic face at Maggie whose nervous expression dissolves into a grin as she makes an _it’s fine_ gesture, and they open their door a crack and stick their head out.

“Kara.”

“Alex!” Kara comes flying at the door before Alex can shut it again and she catches sight of Maggie on the screen. “Oh, you’re busy. Oh, you’re _busy_. Oh, that’s Maggie! Hi Maggie!” She goes to wave at the screen but withdraws her hand with a horrified gasp. “I can’t meet,” she drops her voice, “ _your girlfriend_ for the first time over Skype, Alex!”

“Then get out,” says Alex, raising an eyebrow, and Kara flushes.

“Yes. I will. Just – please can I borrow your soldering iron?”

Alex gestures to the toolbox sitting in front of their wardrobe. “It’s in there.”

Kara has it before they can register what she asked for and they shoot up from their chair. “Wait, Kara, what do you need a soldering iron for?”

\--

“You look happy.”

Alex bristles at Eliza’s comment as Kara and they arrive downstairs to start a food hunt. “Is that a crime now too?”

“Don’t start, Alex, please.”

Alex’s jaw drops. “Start _what_?” they cry. Kara busies herself with the bag of donuts on the side and watches with wide eyes as Eliza turns on Alex.

“I can’t handle any of your fuss tonight.”

“ _Fuss_?” They’ve gone high pitched and incredulous and their bubble of happiness fizzles into an aching chest.

“Can’t we have a normal evening for once?” says Eliza and she picks up her discarded pen, makes a note on a post-it, opens another paper.

“Normal…” Alex chokes and they wrap their hand around the opposite elbow and squeeze it until their fingers go numb. “I…I - ”

They shake off Kara’s fleeting touch on their shoulder as they dart back up to their room.

_They were happy_.

\--

“What are you going to do about March?” asks Kara, adjusting her glasses.

Alex shrugs. “Don’t know.”

“Do you want me to come over? I can come over.” Alex shrugs again. Kara folds her arms and tilts her head and crinkles her forehead and Alex adds a helpless gesture to another shrug.

“I don’t know. Yeah, sure, you can come over.”

“Are you gonna be okay?” Kara blurts it and Alex can’t help but smile.

“When have I ever not been okay?” they say, and Kara gives them a look, then drags them into a hug and ruffles their hair. “Hey, get off!”

“Kara, we’re going.” Eliza interrupts them and she starts heading down the stairs. “Let’s leave these two to unpack.” Kara makes an acknowledging noise and pulls Alex in more.

“You’re not alone,” Kara mutters into their ear and they squeeze her tight. “You’re not alone. I’ve got you, okay?”

Alex eventually pulls back from their sister and they poke her nose playfully. “Drive safely and stay out of trouble, you.”

“Me?” Kara scrunches her nose, offended, and punches Alex’s shoulder in return. “You’re the one who will end up blowing themselves up in the lab or something.”

“If they do, I’ll kill them,” Lucy says and pulls Kara in for her own hug. “See you later, squirt.”

Kara’s indignant “hey!” bounces off the walls of the staircase as she bounds down to the lobby, and Alex and Lucy follow her at a more leisurely speed, stopping just outside the door as Kara piles into the front seat next to Eliza. Waving excitedly, Kara stays twisted around in the seat until Alex and Lucy can no longer see the car and they nudge each other, checking the time and deciding with one look that coffee o’clock is upon them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Eliza situation does get better. Alex does eventually properly play the violin.
> 
> Feedback super appreciated.


	6. Allegro molto appassionato: fortissimo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My half-disappearing off the face of the earth was because I thought my main academic deadline for this year was the end of February. Turns out it's the end of November, which required a brain-aching switch into academic writing mode and...yeah.
> 
> Thank you for your patience, comments and kudos, I couldn't have got through this term without them. The next chapter is 80 % written and should be up for mid-December. That and this one are my favourites so far, and I really hope you enjoy them!
> 
> Sanvers is 100 % endgame in this little universe.
> 
> Thanks as always, Sky, for your help.

Maggie is already back at Stanford when Eliza and Kara drop them off. Physically being near her again takes more getting used to than Alex expected – the stories of couples being reunited with passionate kisses and more had prepared them for more than an awkward wave and the sensation of not being wholly present in the room.

They’ve grown uncomfortably used to Eliza’s misgendering such that Maggie’s gender-neutral language knocks them off kilter. After the emotional whiplash from going from college to Midvale to college again their brain is learning to relax once more, safe and validated next to their girlfriend, but it still lags as they get used to hearing the right pronouns again.

Not that Kara and Lucy didn’t try, they muse as Maggie leads them to her next gig in the gay bar down the road, but the house in Midvale always held a feeling of unease when they were called _they_.

The bar is lit with multi-coloured lights and it’s early enough in the evening that the buzz is present but not overbearing. Maggie, chewing ferociously on a mint, makes a beeline for the mic in the corner. Alex heads for the bar and orders two beers, setting one on the floor by Maggie’s feet next to her bottle of water.

Alex finds a quiet corner from where to watch Maggie, raising their bottle at her when she searches for them. She sends them a smile, dimples flashing, and they grin back.

The audience around Maggie grows, obscuring their view of her. They slide closer with their refilled drink, eyes fixed on their girlfriend as she puts her guitar away. Maggie smiles as she talks to the people, the girls, who come up to her.

And Rao, they don’t want to be possessive but winter break is still too fresh in their mind and the doubts are sticking to their mind like burs on a coat and they don’t take Maggie’s hand when she offers it, they don’t return her eye roll at another girl’s simpers, they turn their cheek into her kiss, and they stop before Maggie’s door is within arm’s reach.

“Danvers, you coming?” With the gleam in Maggie’s eye, they know she’s expecting a quip and at another time they might have provided one but there’s blood pounding in their ears and something bubbling behind their eyes and they turn, and they run.

\--

In the week since they’d been back, they’d studied, worked their way through the remaining bottles of beer in their room, and moved through all the practice rooms in the music block to try and find the best acoustic.

In the end, it’s the smallest room in the corner of the second floor that they choose. With just enough room for the upright piano tucked at the back, it has a small window out of which a tree is just visible, tall and stark against the neighbouring building. They work through their old exercise books, making the most of the week before classes start to scrape their way to a tone that doesn’t make them cringe in embarrassment.

The practice room is where they run when they leave Maggie’s.

It’s partly because Lucy is in all evening, and Alex isn’t in the mood for a conversation that isn’t moving fast with their feet slamming the pavement: the only way they can dampen the stifling beat of their heart in the base of their throat without damaging a hand that they need to squeeze out double stops and furious glissandi.

Some of them wants to go back to the punching bag they’d hung in Midvale, where they’d taught Kara how to throw a punch.

Some of them wants to go back to the bottle of vodka stashed in their sock drawer.

Most of them wants to scream at Eliza for filling them with all the emotions they’d spent three years trying to bury.

So, they settle for the violin.

Steady hands with an unsteady mind, drowning out the ringing in their ears.

Black notes on white pages, blocking out Maggie’s face.

\--

_It’s day three when they find the bottle of scotch their dad brings – brought – out when they have guests over._

_It sits unopened on their desk for days four and five, and on day six, they twist the lid off and take a cautious gulp._

_Day seven is the funeral._

_Half of the remaining scotch slips down easily and it takes them two attempts to screw on the lid._

_It’s hard to notice its effect when they’re already so numb._

_Weeks two and three are the most drawn out weeks of their life._

_At first, they sleep more than they ever have, willing this nightmare to be over each time they open their eyes to a new day and a fleeting second of normality before the eerie silence of the house hits them like a sledgehammer to the chest and they know it’s real, know they can’t be dreaming the vacuum inside them that takes all of their breath and none of their pain._

_Then they don’t sleep at all, to put off freefalling through his absence every morning, to put off the dreams where he is alive and happy and joking, to put off another day of the whispers at school._

_They don’t surf. He isn’t there to see it._

_They study, and they drink, and they practice their violin._

_They try to practice._

_It’s hard._

_After all, what use is a shaking hand from the burn of liquor down your throat and the burn of something else entirely in your heart?_

\--

The next day, they sit on the other side of the lecture hall. As soon as they’ve pulled out a pen, the lecture starts, and they look across at Maggie exactly once to see her three rows down, watching the lecturer intently.

\--

They don’t sit in their usual library seat, instead finding a secluded corner. Maggie arrives five minutes later at their usual table and they see her slow as she finds it empty of both Alex and a Tuesday sandwich.

She sits anyway.

\--

Alex comes out of the lab and stops in their tracks. Maggie is leaning against their locker, arms folded and ankles crossed, and she pushes off with her shoulders to walk towards them, concern on her face.

They push past her. “Hey, what are you doing here?”

“You weren’t answering my texts or calls. I was worried.”

 “I – I’ve been busy. I’m sorry.” They yank on their sweater, head still inside the locker.

“Is this a bad time?”

“Yeah, yeah it is, kinda.” Alex grabs their bag and slams the door shut, spinning around to find Maggie closer than she sounded. “I’m in the middle of an assignment.”

They focus on a spot on the wall just above Maggie’s head. “It’s a challenging one and I’m not sure any of our class get it, to be honest.”

“If anyone can figure it out, it’s you,” says Maggie in a way that makes them meet her eyes and they wonder, briefly, how they thought they deserved someone so supportive and with so much confidence in them.

“I knew this was going to happen, I knew it,” mutters Alex and they bolt for the stairs, Maggie chasing after them.

“What are you talking about?”

“I was happy for like, five minutes.”

“What?” Maggie lands at the bottom of the stairs first and stops in front of Alex.

 They readjust their bag and shake their head. “I – I’m sorry, this isn’t going to work. It was a mistake. I’m sorry. I can’t.”

A professor slips past them and Alex nods at her. When they turn back, Maggie’s face is unreadable and Alex panics that she’s answered and they’ve missed it.

“Okay.” Maggie takes a breath. There’s a split second where they could jump in and take it all back, but they don’t. “Got it. See you, Danvers.”

No. They wouldn’t miss that.

\--

The implications of what they said don’t sink in until they’re opening their door. They freeze in the doorway. Lucy is on the floor in the middle of a plank and Alex stares at the back of her head.

“What’s the difference,” says Alex slowly, “between a fight and a break up?”

Lucy hits the floor and rolls over. “Well, I didn’t see that one coming.” She sits up and Alex inches further into the room. “You think you broke up?”

“I don’t know.” Alex rubs their eyes. “I don’t know, Lucy.”

“Sit.” Lucy points them to her bed and they sink into it. “Start from the beginning.”

Alex recounts it all, monotonously, twisting their hands.

“What do you want to happen now?” Lucy asks when they’ve finished.

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be here,” says Alex. “I need a drink.”

Lucy watches wordlessly as they open their sock drawer and unscrew the lid of their vodka.

They don’t drink immediately. “I told her we were a mistake.” Alex takes a swig, staring at the scratches on the wall. “I don’t want her to think it’s her that’s the mistake.”

Alex takes a smaller sip then points at Lucy. “You and me, that’s the only remotely normal relationship I’ve had in my life.”

“Watch who you’re calling normal,” Lucy murmurs, her eyes tracking Alex as they start to pace.

“I have an alien for a sister. My dad died in a freak accident which no one is ever going to tell me about, my mom is only interested in me following in his scientific footsteps, and I haven’t spoken to Vicky in years. Maggie is the first person I’ve ever wanted to date, Luce, but she’s too good for someone who can’t balance romance with the rest of their life.”

“Did you tell her that?”

“No.” Alex sips again.

“Call her,” Lucy says. Alex twitches. “Call her and talk to her. Tell her what you told me and give her a chance to respond.”

Alex examines the chemical stains on their hands. “She won’t want to talk to me.”

“And you know that how? With your magical crystal ball?” Lucy reaches for Alex’s phone and scrolls through until she finds Maggie’s number. “Call her. The Alex Danvers I know owns up to their mistakes,” she says frankly, “so go and do that.”

They take the phone but don’t press call. Maggie’s face stares up at them, dimples on full.

“Call her, you useless gay,” Lucy calls from the other end of the bed, and Alex finds the bottle of vodka being prised from their grip. “And therapy time with Lucy is now over.”

\--

“Al, it’s your girlfriend.”

Alex takes Lucy’s place at the door and curls their head around it. Maggie’s arms are crossed and she looks like she’d rather be anywhere else than in front of them. When they look at her eyes and see them resigned, they can’t blame her.

“Thanks for coming.”

Maggie’s fingers tighten in the folds of her flannel and she stands straighter. “I almost didn’t.”

Alex takes a step backwards as Maggie barges through and their arm brushes against Lucy, jacket in hand.

“I’ll let you talk,” Lucy says. It’s a good idea, Alex knows, but they want to drag her back and make her mediate this conversation with Maggie, who looks like she’s trying not to slam the door and get of there.

Maggie fixes them with a cold, unwavering stare and they release a long breath. The room behind them is still and quiet, the corner they’re standing in dim with artificial light, and Maggie’s determined, tilted head is silhouetted against the quietly closing door behind her.

“Do you want a drink?”

“Cut to it, Danvers.” Maggie’s voice is tight and Alex isn’t sure what she thinks they’re going to say. They try to school their features into something less terrified and more reassuring. It feels like a pained grimace so they duck their head and grab a beer for themselves, returning to their serious expression.

“I feel like the universe is magically smacking me down from being happy.”

Maggie scoffs a dry laugh. “That’s it? You gotta give me more than that.”

They sort through the speech they prepared, some of it with Lucy, and pick a new starting place.

“Okay. Okay, I,” they nod slowly and try again. “In the bar.”

“Okay.”

“There were all these women coming up to you. Beautiful women, and yet you still came over to me and that - that is confusing.” Alex takes a deep breath. “And I can’t, I just need to know: what do you get out of this relationship?”

Regret tickles their tongue when Maggie flinches away from them.

“What do you get from this relationship, Maggie?”

It’s more of a snap this time and they expect Maggie to flinch again but her eyes soften and no, no, they don’t deserve _soft_.

“Alex, what are you talking about?”

Maggie reaches for Alex’s hand but they snatch it away and point a finger at her.

“You, you could have had any woman in that bar, any of them, but you settle for _me_? Me, who - ” They break off and raise their head to glare at the ceiling.

“Alex.” Maggie’s voice is gentle and Alex steels themselves. “What’s going on?”

“I – I – I just need to know why you’re doing this, why me, why – you could have _anyone_ , and I…” they trail off, blinking angrily as their vision starts to blur with tears.

“Being with you isn’t _settling_ , Alex,” Maggie says, voice low, and Alex’s lip curls into a snarl.

“Yeah? I don’t even know what I am or who I am and you don’t deserve that, you deserve someone normal and, and – and not me.”

“Alex.”

“So I figured, I realised, that you’ve got to be in this for another reason, right? There must be something I can give you to make this,” they gesture to themselves in disgust, “worth it.”

“Alex.” Rao, they didn’t mean to hurt her, they didn’t, but there’s pain in Maggie’s eyes now and they can’t look at her because that’s all they do, they are pain, pain for the ones they love and they can’t, they shouldn’t have even tried – “Alex, look at me.”

It takes a deep breath and their knuckles starting to burn from too tight fists for Alex to finally look at her.

“What’s going on?” Maggie repeats, gently, and Alex starts shaking their head. “You can tell me anything.”

They dip their head and their lip trembles but they don’t answer.

“Did something happen at home?”

_How. How did she know?_

Alex raises their eyes and Maggie gives a small nod, taking a tiny step forward.

“What happened with your mom?”

There’s so much they want to tell Maggie but saying it out loud sounds like a confession of not being able to cope. Not being strong enough.

They roll the words around their mouth. Off-script words now that Lucy may suspect but never hear, they don’t know, they can’t tell if these words are obvious to anyone but them. They tug at them, arranging them into an order that burns like a brand on their tongue and then they can’t hold them in any longer.

“It’s relentless in that house,” they whisper. “It’s constant. _She_ and _her_ and _sister_ and _daughter_ and I get back here and suddenly I can be _they_ again and I can be happy being me without feeling like I’m supposed to be ashamed of it. You make me so happy, Maggie, but spending time in that house makes me wonder how much I deserve it.”

“Alex.” She sounds like she wants to jump in but if they don’t get this out now they never will so they hold up a hand, a tiny wave, and she nods.

“You know, I have always felt so…responsible. Like, weight of the world responsible. And my parents always relied on me to watch over my sister, so the few times that I did anything for myself, it ended badly, and now I remember why.”

Alex runs a hand through their hair. They’ve never talked about this before. They can’t tell Kara about it. They don’t want to tell Lucy about it and chance pointing out even more differences between them and Kara, and Lucy and Lois.

“My sister… she deserves the world. And when I can give that to her, a safe home away from whatever the kids at school do or say, that’s huge, and I’ve always, always known that I will do anything to protect her including forfeiting myself because when Mom and I get going, it effects Kara. I can’t protect Kara when I’m putting me first.”

It feels like Kara’s squeezing all the air out of their chest and they wrap their arms around themselves, before shaking their head in bewilderment.

“I’ve never doubted myself so much, you know. And I want to be able to say that what my mom thinks doesn’t matter to me but it does. I’ve never doubted that I know myself but…” Alex exhales and shrugs.  “Maybe she’s right and this is just a phase.”

“No,” Maggie says firmly, so firmly that Alex’s heart settles instantly. “This is real. You are real. And you deserve a real, full, happy life, as you, in the identity that fits you best. None of us can tell you what you’re feeling, Alex, but whatever it is, it is valid. It is real.”

They search her eyes for the caveat, but there’s just earnest, ferocious, fiery love.

“So.” They puff out their cheeks and gradually blow them out. “That’s what happened. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Maggie steps back and looks at them for a long time before speaking. “We’ve both got ghosts,” she tells Alex, and Maggie’s eyes glaze over briefly as though one of those ghosts has materialised behind them, “but I don’t want this to become one of them.”

Alex reaches for Maggie’s hand. “It won’t.”

“It will if we don’t start talking about this stuff.”

They don’t respond immediately. They run their thumb over the back of Maggie’s hand and let the ripples in their stomach die away.

“Okay.”

“Okay.” Maggie squeezes their hand. “Because when you went running off on me, saying we were a mistake, I thought I’d done something wrong.”

Alex’s eyes widen in horror. “Maggie, no - ”

“You made my decision for me, you decided it would be better for me to not be with you, and I didn’t get a say.” Maggie takes a deep breath. “That’s not fair on me. I deserve more than that.”

Alex tries to imagine what happened to Maggie to make her words hold a note of uncertainty underlined with pride. They nod. “I know.”

“And you don’t have to tell me the details, okay? Just don’t run without an explanation. I can’t stop bad things happening to you but I can help you through them and I deserve to be allowed to make the choice to do that.”

There’s a moment of silence, Maggie steadfastly holding Alex’s gaze as firmly as she’s holding their hand.

“ _You_ were never the mistake,” says Alex quietly. “You’re not a mistake. You’re real too.”

The hug Maggie draws them into feels more real than anything they’ve felt in the last week and they melt into her arms, suddenly and brilliantly completely in the moment.

\--

Alex stirs and tries to roll over to look at the time. A weight pinning them down stops them and they freeze. Looking down at where dark hair peeks out of the top of their duvet, they smile at the sight of Maggie curled tightly on top of them, nose squished into their chest.

Alex snakes out an arm and flaps it towards their phone, little finger snagging the charger and sending it crashing to the floor. Maggie opens one eye, sees Alex where she expects them to be, and closes it again.

They swear under their breath when Lucy grunts at them and hope she doesn’t notice Maggie repositioning herself.

“Danvers?” says Lucy groggily.

“Lane?” Alex answers as quietly as they can. Maggie’s hand flops onto their mouth and sleepy eyes peer up at them.

“Shhhhhhhh,” she says with the coherence of someone still half-asleep. Lucy is suddenly awake and peeling the covers off them both. Alex pushes her away with their free hand and Lucy dodges it, snickering.

“Cosy.”

“Cold!” Maggie complains until Lucy’s presence registers in her mind and she stiffens. She squirms around as Alex’s hand rubs her arm reassuringly and she tries to pull the covers back over her head to shield her eyes from the harsh light of the lamp Lucy had decided to turn on.

“Lucy, what are you – no!” Alex half lunges towards Lucy as she grabs their phone from the floor and pulls up the camera.

“Smile,” says Lucy. Maggie groans and mumbles something that neither of the other two catch, holding onto Alex as they spill out of bed in slow motion. Maggie clings to Alex like a koala and they end up in a heap with their legs still tangled in the sheets.

“Lucy fucking Lane,” Alex starts, spitting out a mouthful of hair. “You delete that right now.”

“You kiss your girl with that mouth, Danvers?”

“Yeah,” Maggie declares from Alex’s neck. “They do.”

Lucy watches as Alex’s gaze softens and their entire body melts into Maggie. “I see you two have made up.”

Maggie stiffens again.

“Yeah,” says Alex quietly. “We talked.”

Lucy smirks. “Looks like more than just talking.” Alex throws a pillow at her head. “Can I interest you two nerds in coffee, or should I get my books and go?”

Maggie wriggles into a sitting position and clutches the sheets to her chest. “Coffee.”

“We could get coffee later.” Alex hooks their foot under Maggie’s knee and tries to pull her back down.

“Coffee,” Maggie says more firmly, glancing up at Lucy who squints at Alex with an unreadable expression. Alex looks between them and sighs. They roll onto their side and prop their head up with their hand.

“Fine.”

\--

Alex walks between Lucy and Maggie on the way to the café. They keep hold of Maggie’s hand even as they slide onto the bench after her.

Across the table, they see Lucy not so subtly take another photo of them but as they inhale the heavenly coffee fumes they find they don’t care – or at least, they care less than they did that morning, because Maggie’s hand in theirs is small and warm and Lucy’s knee knocking against theirs is so Lucy and familiar, and the messages appearing on their phone screen from Kara in response to what they can only assume is Lucy’s photos is so expected and sisterly and they’re not really okay, but they’re happy, and that’ll do for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback super appreciated! You can also catch me on my tumblr: thesesausagesaremouldy
> 
> Next up, Valentine's Day o.O


	7. Allegro molto appassionato: fermata

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thousand apologies for the wait. Please enjoy my slightly late Valentine's offering that yes, was supposed to be out mid-December
> 
> Thanks to Sky, as always, and to the internet for constantly dying on me as I tried to upload this chapter

It does until paper roses and chocolate hearts fill the shops and the knot in Alex’s stomach reappears when they realise that this is the first time that they want to even acknowledge the holiday exists.

They wander into the corner shop to scout out what there is in the way of Valentine’s Day paraphernalia and nearly turn tail. It’s full of pink and frills and they’re new to this but Maggie has never shown the slightest bit of interest in any of that.

Roses, maybe. Chocolate, probably. Alcohol, most definitely.

They flip open a notepad and scrawl out _Operation: Valentine’s_ , underlining it carefully and then closing the pad.

It’s a start.

\--

They have a list, now.

They’re sat against the wall opposite the one Lucy is scaling with their knees balancing their notebook and their pen tucked between their teeth.

“Green,” they call, and Lucy waves in acknowledgement before extending a leg towards the foothold Alex had pointed out.

They annotate their list as they watch Lucy climb, and it grows and grows with each passing idea of how they can show Maggie how much they like her.

\--

A Valentine’s Day between the two of them, Alex can stomach. It seems, however, that on campus, it turns into a collection of students delivering love letters and singing Valentines, dressed as a spectrum of different Cupids all clad in fluffy, pink fairy wings and with optional pink slippers.

“Valentine’s Day is kinda dumb, right?” They say it without thinking when one more Cupid goes past the window.

Maggie’s nursing another coffee as she transcribes lectures, sat opposite Alex with one foot tucked underneath her and the other just touching their ankle.

“What, the ridiculous notion that you need a manufactured holiday to prove that you care? Proves that people are patsies willing to throw away money on cheap chocolates and wilted roses.” She shakes her head and wrinkles her nose. “I hate Valentine’s Day.”

At the vehemence in her voice, Alex just nods and swallows their coffee.

They shred their list as soon as they get home.

\--

“Kara.”

“Al! Hey!”

“Hey, Kara. Listen, I have a question - ”

“Alex! Valentine’s Day! Your first one with Maggie!”

Alex closes their eyes. “Quiet, Kara, I haven’t told Mom yet.”

“Your first one with Maggie!” Kara repeats in a whisper and Alex smiles despite the panic crawling slowly through them.

“That’s what I wanted to ask about.” There’s a clunk that sounds like Kara leaping onto the couch from behind and the flap of cushions being arranged.

“I’m ready,” Kara says. “Hit me.”

Alex takes a deep breath. “Maggie doesn’t like Valentine’s Day.”

“What?” Kara screeches and Alex holds the phone away from their ear. “She _what_?”

“She called it a manufactured holiday for patsies?”

“She _what_?”

“She called it a manufactured holiday for - ”

“I heard you, I heard you.” Alex imagines Kara waving impatiently at them and stifles a chuckle even as the panic reaches their throat. “Okay. Okay, I’m thinking, I’m thinking. What kind of things does she like?”

Alex flounders. “Guitars? And, and – tiramisu, she loves tiramisu. I swear she’d eat it for every meal if she could.”

“Well, if you go for tiramisu, might I suggest you buy it rather than make it?”

“I can make tiramisu,” protests Alex as Kara hums dubiously.

“Desserts are not your forte, Alex. Giving Maggie food poisoning is unlikely to endear her to Valentine’s Day.” Alex concedes that point with a gracious grumble. “What else does she like?”

“Bonsai trees? Which I know is totally random but I find it adorable, and… scotch?”

“Sounds like half a picnic to me,” says Kara.

“Everything sounds like half a picnic to you.”

“Rude.” Kara sniffs, then sighs. “But true.”

\--

They have a new list now, complete with timings and colour coding. It’s not quite an itinerary, but it’s as close to one as they think they can get away with without ruining the atmosphere.

\--

“What the hell, Alex?”

It’s not the reaction they’re expecting and they freeze as the door slams in their face.

They knock again.

The door flies open and every inch of Maggie’s body is stiff and angry. “That looks a hell of a lot like Valentine’s stuff, Danvers.”

“Well,” Alex starts. Maggie’s eyes harden.

“I thought so.” She goes to slam the door again but Alex sticks their foot out just in time to stop it closing.

“Wait! Maggie, please - ”

“What don’t you understand about _I hate Valentine’s Day_?”

“Nothing, I just – can we talk?”

Alex holds their breath as the door stops pushing on their foot. “You don’t get to run away either, Sawyer.” Alex raises an eyebrow, prevented from crossing their arms by the tiramisu. Maggie’s jaw clenches.

“I’m not running.”

“You’re not talking to me either.”

Maggie flings open the door and glares at them in disbelief. “Because you did such a great job of listening last time,” she scoffs.

“Yes.” Alex shuffles just enough over the threshold that they can keep the door open with their elbow. “I listened. You hate the manufactured holiday that is Valentine’s Day. You think the chocolate and the cards are tacky. I thought you hated the stereotypical romance schmooze, so I planned an alternative evening. You know, with things you actually like.” They pointedly raise the tiramisu.

“Fine,” Maggie snarls, “you listened. But you didn’t _hear me_. I have one pet peeve, Danvers, and that’s not being heard.”

“Then you have to help me! How was I to know that this clearly runs deeper than you being a Valentine’s Grinch?”

“You should have read between the goddamn lines, Danvers.”

“Or maybe you should have just told me instead.”

Maggie sighs angrily and grips her hips harder. “I hate Valentine’s Day.”

“I’m getting that,” Alex says, and they push their hair back from their forehead. “What about a quiet evening together, then? Just us, no mention of anything remotely romantic.”

Maggie doesn’t answer.

“The stars are out tonight.”

Maggie doesn’t move.

“I was going to take you up the hill to watch them. We could still go.”

Maggie finally gives a half-smile.

“Maybe another time.”

“Sure. Okay.” Alex forces their own smile, mouth full of slightly bitter-tasting cotton wool.

Maggie shakes her head slowly and points them to the door. “Another time,” she promises the room quietly, and bitter gets a little sweeter. “See you around, Danvers.”

Alex steps through the doorway and turns to watch the door slowly close. They stare at it a moment longer, then slip away into the starlit night.

\--

_Stupid._

Reading between the lines is what they’re studying for – not explicitly, but if Eliza has her way, they know they’ll end up sliding into an MD before they can blink. Their career is going to be dealing with people and picking up on things no one wants to say aloud, and they fail at the first hurdle with someone who matters, something that matters, someone they know and who cares about them and they can’t be anything but stupid enough to dare to suggest a Valentine’s Day.

_Selfish._

To have taken the gratitude that Maggie sees past the gender thing – sees it, acknowledges it, but sees them as other bits of a human too – and to have thrown it back in her face in the name of love, they guess, is in retrospect the worst decision they’ve ever made. They’ve made it about them again, about their first Valentine’s Day with complete acceptance from someone, someone so perfect as Maggie.

_Insensitive._

Making it about their internal struggle and ignoring hers. Ignoring what she may have been through and what she may have tried to hint at in the way they sometimes have to, with the silent looks and twitching shoulders when talking is too much and touching even worse.

An identity crisis.

That’s what it feels like.

Labels stretched in front of them that finally fit.

Labels that by themselves they can justify, they can hold tight to their chest and say yes, that is me, this is my truth, but when dunked in the utterly bemusing life source that is love, labels that start to fray because they both do and don’t matter, they are both at the forefront of their mind and at the back, and they just have to keep making it all about them.

It should have been about Maggie.

(They thought it had been about Maggie.)

Alex raises a bottle of beer in a silent toast to Maggie as they spread out their blanket and settle down to watch the stars appear.

\--

The next day, they find themselves back at Maggie’s dorm, knocking on her door, in their favourite leather jacket.

Maggie opens it to see Alex standing there, thumbs tucked in their pockets.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Maggie returns with a guarded smile, beckoning Alex in. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m on my way home,” says Alex. “I missed you.”

Maggie’s smile turns genuine. “You getting soft on me, Danvers?”

“No.” They take a step backwards, running a hand through their hair. “You look busy, I’ll go.”

“Yeah, I’m super busy,” Maggie deadpans with a pointed look at her clear desk and the novel open and face down on her bed.

Alex pauses in the doorway and offers a hesitant smile. They shove their hands further into their pockets and pop their elbows forward in an awkward shrug. “I wasn’t sure you’d want me to stick around.”

“Do you want to stick around?” Maggie asks bluntly.

“Obviously.”

Maggie’s keen eyes narrow and she leans forward towards them. “Your jaw.”

Alex’s hand instantly comes up to rub at it. “What about it?”

“You’ve got a - let me see.” Maggie grips their chin and tilts Alex’s head away from her. They pull back. “Danvers, you have a bruise the size of my watch. What the hell have you done now?”

“What have I done _now_?”

“You smell of booze and you look like you’ve come from the bar.”

Alex looks down at their outfit. “I’m wearing exactly what I wear every day.”

“Have you been in a fight?”

Alex’s jaw drops. “ _Have I been in a fight_?”

“You look like you’ve been in a fight.”

“A fight that’s bruised my jaw and nothing else?”  Alex crosses their arms and glares at Maggie who reaches for their jaw again.

“Well, _I_ don’t know how you get into these situations, much less how you get out of them.”

“I don’t _get into situations -_ ”

“I know I haven’t known you long but even I can see how quickly you run to a bar when - ”

“Exactly, Sawyer, you haven’t known me long at all.” Alex’s eyes flash and Maggie lowers her hands. “So it’s none of your _goddamn_ business where I go or how quickly I go there.”

Maggie’s glare turns icy to match her words. “You’re right, it’s none of my business. Doesn’t stop me caring about what happens to you.”

“There’s caring and then there’s apparently assuming I have some sort of drinking problem.”

“Don’t you?”

“Don’t I what?”

“Have a drinking problem.”

The room is suddenly too close and Alex jabs their finger at Maggie. “Have you been talking to Lucy?”

“Should I have been?”

Alex snaps.

“Dammit, Sawyer, quit the therapist-y shit and say what you want to say!”

All the nervous excitement of being back with Maggie dissipates. They can feel defence brimming up on their tongue and their shoulders tensing in preparation for whatever Maggie _does_ want to say.

“Anyone who knows you can see you’re stressed,” Maggie says. Alex rolls their eyes but she continues. “And these days, when I see you, you’re either studying or you’re in a bar. That’s not healthy, Alex.”

“I do other things.” Alex pulls at their collar and frowns when Maggie pales. “What?”

“Is that a hickey?” Maggie’s voice is deadly quiet and the blood drains from Alex’s face in solidarity.

“ _What_?” They try to look at their neck or their collarbone or wherever this mark supposedly is, a mark they definitely don’t remember getting but is apparently there.

“So that’s what you were doing this evening?” Alex lurches towards Maggie at the uncertain waver in her voice but she trips away from them. “I didn’t want to do Valentine’s Day so you found someone else who did?”

“No!”

“Is that where the bruise is from?” Maggie swallows harshly and Alex’s stomach keeps falling.

“No, Maggie, I promise it’s not.”

“Then what, Danvers?” Desperation seeps into her voice and Alex thinks and thinks and squeezes their eyes shut as they run through the last day, the last week, trying to work out whether they’d had an encounter with a giant spider that had taken a chunk out of their neck without them realising it like some sort of vampire spider, and then it hits them, and they almost laugh in relief.

“There’s a reason I don’t get into fights,” they say. Maggie’s eyes flicker at the change in topic but Alex is so heady with the only thing that makes sense that they don’t properly notice.

_“Alexandra Danvers why is your hand uncovered?”_

_Alex jumps and belatedly hides their hand behind their back. “Um, to let it breathe?” they try. Eliza’s eyes flash dangerously and Alex gulps._

_“If you took it off to do music practice so help me.” She sighs when Alex avoids her gaze. “Alex, you can’t just wish injuries away. Actions have consequences, sweetie, and if you’re going to go around hitting things then maybe the time off from surfing and music will help you reflect on that.”_

_“Mom!”_

_“No, Alex. You’ve got to let it heal. If it gets infected you’ll have even longer to wait, and you don’t want that, do you?”_

“What would you do if you couldn’t play your guitar, Maggie?”

The question throws Maggie for even more of a loop and she folds her arms. “I don’t know. Why?”

“Last time I got into a fight, I fractured enough of my hand that doing anything useful with it for months was impossible.” Maggie tilts her head and Alex sighs. “Including playing the violin.”

Maggie’s eyebrows shoot up. “Okay.”

“The bruise on my jaw isn’t from fighting. Drinking isn’t the only way I deal with stress.”

“And the hickey - ”

“God, yes, that’s from my violin too.” Alex self-consciously rubs the mark on their neck and Maggie gives a short laugh. Then, she laughs again, and again, and slumps down onto her bed and nods slowly.

“Well, I can’t say I’m not relieved,” she says. Alex hovers, uncertain. “Your violin,” Maggie whispers to herself. “A fucking twig.”

Alex looks affronted. “That makes your guitar a tree trunk,” they retort and Maggie stands and waves her arm vaguely at them.

“You don’t really give off the aura of a violinist.”

Alex pffts carefully. “I’m an occasional one at most.”

“I’d hate to see the size of the hickey if you were a professional,” Maggie teases and Alex groans.

“Don’t let Lucy hear you.”

“Alex, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”

“No, you shouldn’t have.” Alex pauses. “I can’t deny they look like proper hickeys though. The leader of our orchestra once came to rehearsal with a hickey here.” They gesture to the unmarked side of their neck. “She told everyone it was from her violin, until we realised that that’s not the side you hold it. Her girlfriend was still teasing her about it two years later.”

“They were out?” It slips out before Maggie can stop it.

“Yeah,” Alex chuckles. “More than one kid was pulled from the orchestra because their parents didn’t like them being exposed to ‘unsavoury characters’,” they quote, “but they were phenomenal musicians and there was no way the conductor was letting them go simply because they were lesbians. Caused an admin nightmare for our last tour, apparently, since they realised that separate male and female dorms had never guaranteed there’d be no making out between people of the same gender.”

“Bet they loved you,” Maggie says and Alex laughs.

“Oh, they would’ve absolutely hated me,” they agree, “but this was before I knew nonbinary people existed. I’d only just realised I was gay.”

Maggie nods, almost to herself. “It takes some getting your head round, especially at that age.”

“Especially when we were that age,” Alex adds. “I sometimes wonder if coming out would be any less terrifying now.”

“Things haven’t changed that much.” Maggie bites down hard on a mint. “Not in Nebraska.”

“In Midvale, they have.”

“Good for Midvale.”

Alex frowns at how flat Maggie’s voice has fallen. “How did your parents react when you came out?”

Maggie forcefully tosses the tube of mints towards her desk and it hits the wall behind it. “They were fine. Yeah. The usual rainbow celebration.”

Alex smiles. “Same. It was all _we love you, however you are,_ and _why would your being gay ever disappoint us_ ,” they say. “I went and told Rachel – the leader of the orchestra – the week afterwards and you know, it was nice to not feel like the only lesbian in the area.”

“You’re a lesbian?”

“Oh, I am _so_ gay.” Alex steps towards Maggie, who shuffles to the end of the bed so her knees are either side of theirs.

“What a coincidence,” Maggie breathes, tone light once more, as Alex guides her to her feet and kisses her soundly. “Because I am very, very gay.”

“Mm,” Alex hums onto Maggie’s lip and she moans. “I’d never noticed.”

Maggie pulls back and looks seriously at Alex. “I meant it, Al. I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions. I know what alcohol can do to people and I do care about you even if we’ve not known each other long.”

“That’s gay, Sawyer.” Maggie slaps their hand lightly. “I apologise for taking your head off. I’m not good with criticism.”

Maggie raises an eyebrow. “Then how the hell did you make it as a musician?”

_“Music is not perfect, Alex. It can’t be because we aren’t.”_

_Alex scoffs. “That makes no sense, Kara.”_

_“Music is an extension of a being’s soul.”_

_“Yeah, right.”_

_Kara smiles calmly and plucks the E string of the guitar on her lap. The hum reverberates around the garage and Alex’s knees tremble as the buzz travels from the speakers to their feet and up their legs._

_“The sound of this guitar is like your heartbeat.” Kara plucks again and Alex reaches across to dampen the strings._

_“Turn it down,” they say. Kara fiddles with the volume dial and plucks again._

_“I can hear your heart, Alex,” she says._

_“I know,” says Alex wearily._

_“This guitar sounds like your heart, and your heartbeat is unique to you.”_

_Alex opens their mouth to explain why they’re completely different sounds, but Kara shushes them._

_“I can tell when your heart is racing. I can tell it’s you even when you’re far away from me. Any music we play is like that. You’re not perfect, Alex. Your music can only be a perfect interpretation of you and nothing else.”_

Maggie’s comment about their drinking sticks with them for the next few days.

Every time they pass a bar or a group of happily tipsy people on their way home, or hell, even when Alex is just doing the grocery shopping, _some kind of drinking problem_ rings in their ears and they pause before buying their usual six pack.

They stay longer at the library and slip home at four in the morning, determined to show Maggie how completely wrong her suggestion had been.

(Lucy points out that studying for that many hours several days in a row is not really any healthier, but they ignore her.)

Lucy drags them out of the library on Thursday evening and chatters loudly over their complaining until she pulls them to a stop in front of a bar Alex hasn’t yet been to and all but shoves them through the door.

“Quit moping and go find your girl.”

Alex weakly protests but Lucy shakes her head at them and saunters off to the other corner of the bar, towards a girl who stands to greet her with a kiss to the cheek and a playful nip to her neck.

Before Alex realises it, they’re stood next to Maggie at the counter.

“Danvers, hey.” Maggie knocks back the last of her drink and lifts a finger for another. “Can I get you anything?”

Alex slides onto the stool next to her. “I’ll have what you’re having.”

The bartender places two tumblers of scotch in front of Maggie and she slides one sideways to Alex. “Balcony?”

“Are you playing tonight?” asks Alex as Maggie bobs to pick up her guitar.

“No, I just take Gertrude for walks,” Maggie deadpans. Alex stumbles and snorts through their drink.

“Gertrude?”

“Gertrude the Guitar.” Alex presses the back of the hand holding their drink to their mouth. “Stop laughing.”

“You call your guitar Gertrude?”

“Stop laughing!”

“Gertrude,” Alex splutters, and Maggie sighs heavily.

“Are you telling me you never gave your violin a name?”

Alex shakes their head, still sniggering. “Gertrude,” they whisper under their breath and Maggie playfully whacks their arm.

The night is cold but refreshing, dark enough to need the lights to illuminate Maggie as she turns her head into the wind, hair buffeting around her. She leans on the rail and hooks one ankle behind the other, and Alex quickly looks away when she catches them staring.

“What?”

“How long have you played guitar?”

“A while.” Silence resumes until Maggie blinks and returns the question. “How long have you played?”

Alex gives a little grin. “A while.” They tuck their hands under their armpits to keep them warm. “I wasn’t trying to keep it from you. I haven’t seriously played in years. My, er, my dad used to take me to concerts when I was small and I kinda got hooked.”

“Do you two still go?” Maggie asks, and Alex shrugs.

“He died,” they say conversationally and Maggie’s head jerks up and she starts to apologise but Alex waves it away. “It’s cool. I mean, it’s not cool, but you didn’t know. I’ve kept the violin to myself because that was our thing, I guess. Sometimes when I play, it’s like having him back in the room.”

“Is that why you started playing again?”

“There were several reasons.” Alex doesn’t elaborate, concentrating on the mesmerising swirl of the last half-finger of scotch in their glass, notes on surface tension and alcohol content mingling with the echoes of symphonies in their mind.

They take a sip. “’When I am making music, there are no questions, and no need for answers.’ Mahler,” they add at Maggie’s curious look.  “Music doesn’t care what my gender is. No music does. Music doesn’t care that I love women.”

Their fingers twitch to match the studies they’d played that morning.

“Music doesn’t want me to explain what I’m feeling or why I’m feeling it. God, Maggie, music lets me _feel_.”

Maggie’s nodding at them and her own fingers are twitching now, scratching lightly at her palm. “Music’s for the things you have no words for.”

Alex grins, and then Maggie grins too.

“Music doesn’t want justification of anything. It’s your story however you want to tell it. Whenever you want to.”

Alex’s grin broadens. “That’s why you play? For the story?”

“Yeah,” says Maggie, all trace of caution gone. “So people know it’s okay to have a story that’s a bit different.”

“Those are usually the best stories, anyway.”

Maggie clinks her nearly empty glass against Alex’s. “Here’s to that.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly I'd like to promise an update in the near future but between my weekly existential crises and remembering I'm doing a degree it could be anytime between now and July, many apologies. If you feel able to leave a comment I would absolutely love to hear what you thought of this chapter xox


	8. Andante: solo espressivo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Just say: sorry it's late, forgive me, I just moved to France." - Sky
> 
> "I liked the chapter, you can tell them that" - also Sky
> 
> Thoughts very much appreciated. I can be found on tumblr at @thesesausagesaremouldy

The date is ringed in the calendar that hangs on the wall next to the periodic table and under a photo of Alex and Kara at the zoo.

Alex is aware of it even before March 1st rolls around. Their eyes are understandably drawn to it whenever they replace each met deadline with another new one.

It’s not labelled. Anyone who would see it, already knows.

Except, they forget, Maggie.

***

The week of the anniversary doesn’t feel like a real week.

Every other year, they’ve been at home. Eliza let them both skip school, and more recently, Alex and Kara would go to the beach to skip stones and eat ice cream. Alex would scream underwater, then spend the evening by themselves on the roof. Kara would join them at bedtime and they would stargaze and tell stories.

They would cry, silently, privately.

This year…well.

This year is the first time they’re not at home for it.

There’s no beach unless you count the lake – which they don’t.

They can’t bury themselves in their duvet and spend the day crying because they have a fucking roommate – even if that roommate is Lucy.

They do the sensible thing.

They find the fire escape and climb to the roof.

_They perch on the corner of the box in the garage and watch Kara plug in her bass._

_It feels like a heartbeat. That’s the point, they know._

_Kara tells them often enough._

_They haven’t been down here since – since. They didn’t want to come, but after they had talked to (ranted at) Kara, she had taken their hand with an uncharacteristically firm grip and guided them to the garage where she looks them right in the eye._

_They stare back, like it’s the only thing holding them together._

_(It is.)_

_“Before, your heart sounded like this.” Kara strums a steady one-two._

_Alex lets it wash over them until Kara speaks again and they jerk in their seat._

_“Now, it sounds more…”_

_It’s supposed to sound different, says Kara._

_Alex only knows that it feels different._

_They can’t hear the difference._

_They can feel it._

_It aches, like their heart is actually breaking (impossible, they know), right through the pit of their stomach to the back of their throat, and they reach forward to turn up the volume on the amplifier until they can’t hear Kara’s explanation anymore, until the buzz moves up their legs, until it’s shaking them slightly with every strum and they can no longer feel their heart, feel the ache, feel_ him.

Kara arrives with a quiet thud.

Alex doesn’t react except to push the unopened bottle of whisky further away from them.

Kara crouches and opens her arms. Alex shuffles towards her and leans their head on her shoulder. Kara wraps her arms tightly around them and squeezes, and even by Kara’s standards, it’s gentle.

“How’re you doing?”

Alex grunts.

“Yeah, silly question.” Kara manoeuvres round Alex, never letting them go, until her back is next to theirs against the wall.

“It’s crap.”

It comes out as a croak and Kara nods against their head. They let out a shuddering breath, their shoulders tensing.

“It’s okay to grieve. It’s good to grieve,” Kara murmurs into Alex’s hair, pulling them closer so their head is properly tucked into her neck. “I, um. I know I probably didn’t make it very easy to – to process anything after Jeremiah – when he…”

“When he died,” Alex says, voice muffled. “You can say it, Kara, it’s not a bad word.”

“Right.” Kara swallows and runs her fingers through their hair. “And I know Eliza can be hard on you.”

Alex snorts.

“But Alex,” Kara continues. “You’ve got to do it eventually. It’ll kill you if you bottle it up.”

Alex squeezes her hand. “I don’t know how,” they admit eventually. “No one has told me _how_ to do this, how to live without him, Kar, how to just carry on like nothing has happened - ” Their voice breaks and Kara rubs their arm.

“That’s the thing, Al. Something _has_ happened. Your dad died. There’s no one right way to deal with someone dying.”

Kara gets a look on her face that Alex knows means her mind has drifted to memories of explosions and darkness, and of being curled up next to Alex on the couch back home in the midst of similar conversations.

“I’m feeling things I never knew I could.” And I don’t have names for them, Alex adds silently. There are memories that burn and words that sting, photos that shake their heart, and now they’re alone in a place where _he_ had never been and the time that has passed since _it_ has never been more obvious.

Kara nods. “After Krypton died, I tried to work out what I was feeling. I tried to label everything I was feeling and explain it away, I tried to rationalise it, but I never could. I’m not sure grief is something you can rationalise.”

“Were you angry?”

“I still am.”

Alex looks at Kara, properly, then. They’ve thought before how lucky they are to know the Kara under the smiles and the sunshine. They’re lucky that she trusts them enough to show them that part of her. It’s a privilege, and Alex briefly wonders if they should be starting to let Kara into their own hidden corners rather than assuming they’re protecting her by holding it all in.

After all, they know what it’s like to have to hide a part of yourself.

And clearly, Kara hides more than they would have originally thought of as ‘grief’.

There is no trace of sunny, puppy-loving Kara as she continues.

“There are people who left me – chose to leave me – thinking it would be better for me to live without them than not live at all. It’s hard not to be angry when someone makes that decision for you.”

Alex wriggles into a more upright position. “How…how do you not let it eat you? I can’t even begin to compare Dad dying to you losing everyone yet I’m the one sitting on a rooftop with a bottle of - ” they squint at the label on the bottle, “ – fuck, of the cheapest whisky I could find, apparently.”

“I went to the scrapyard and punched a lot of cars.” Kara shrugs. “There was a lot of crying.”

“Oh, great,” says Alex. “Can’t I just, shoot it or something?”

“I am not giving you any kind of weapon in your current state.” Kara pouts in response to Alex’s sulky pout. “It’s okay to be angry, Alex. You have to find your own type of scrapyard.”

“I want to revise the weapons thing.”

Kara hits them in the chest. “No.” She ponders. “What about music?”

“What about it?” Alex scowls.

“This is what it’s for, right?”

Any other time, Alex would have argued, gone for a run, or hell, got their textbooks out and got lost in a chapter of quantum mechanics, but something inside them knows Kara’s right. This might be the thing that’s been missing and putting everything slightly out of place because if there’s one thing playing reminds them of, it’s Jeremiah.

_“What does the music say to you?” Alex makes to answer but their teacher shakes her head. “You don’t have to tell me. Music is personal, Alex. Just feel it, and play.”_

_Jeremiah spinning them around._

_No._

_Jeremiah teaching them to ride a bike._

_No. No no no._

_Jeremiah showing them the stars._

_Fuck. No. They can’t do this here not now not in front of their teacher not with this no no no –_

_Jeremiah smiling, laughing, holding Eliza, holding Alex, him, his smell, his hair, his jacket and the clomp of his boots, ringing in their ears and through their core and shaking them, shaking, shaking until they break, they can’t, they break and it hurts, it hurts –_

They play for hours.

They play until their fingertips are raw, burning, until their shoulders ache in the way they would after a day of rehearsals, but their heart sings.

They burn through a book of Bach sonatas, a movement or two of Bartok, Mussorgsky, fast and furious and so completely cleansing that they play the final chord of Stravinsky with a bitter flourish and squeeze their eyes shut, panting, floating, spinning, feeling.

“Incredible.”

Alex moves faster than they knew was possible. A figure steps out of the shadow of the door that Alex didn’t even hear open.

“Who are you?”

“My name is J’onn J’onzz. I’m the faculty head.” He comes further in. “That was amazing, Ms - ?”

“Alex Danvers,” Alex says automatically. “No Ms. Just Alex.”

“Alex.” J’onn nods. “You have a gift, Alex. Something special.”

Alex gives him a sceptical look and starts to clear up. “And you could tell that from half an hour of dodgy notes and misplaced fingers?”

“Yes.” J’onn doesn’t correct them on the length of time they were playing. “I could. And I have a proposition.” He pulls out a card. “There’s a concerto competition, you’ve probably seen the posters for it. You need a faculty sponsor to enter. I am willing to be yours.”

Alex shakes their head as they swing their case onto their back. “No thanks. I’m not looking to perform.”

“Give it some thought? You shouldn’t let a talent like yours go to waste.”

Alex reluctantly takes the card and buries it in their pocket with a polite smile.

***

“Hey, Lucy.”

Someone grabs Lucy’s arm and she starts, yanking it out of their grip and spinning quickly, ready to chew someone’s head off. She finds Maggie’s worried gaze on her, so she fights off the urge to put her hands on her hips and instead sighs.

“You shouldn’t grab people like that, Sawyer.”

“Have you seen Alex?”

Lucy frowns. “No. Should I have?”

“They’re not answering my messages.”

“And?” Lucy raises an eyebrow.

“We were supposed to have lunch together. And they usually text me if they’re about to go radio silent.”

Lucy returns to frowning when it hits. “Shit.”

“What?” panics Maggie, and Lucy waves a hand at her.

“No, it’s. Ugh. Danvers.” Lucy swears under her breath. Trust them to leave her in a predicament like this. “I don’t…know how much you know,” she says carefully.

If anything, Maggie’s panic increases. “Tell me, Lucy. Please. I need to know they’re okay.”

As if on cue, Lucy’s phone chimes and she pulls it out to see a message from Kara, telling her that they were on the roof and to check there first if she couldn’t find Alex later on.

Lucy sighs again, pinching the bridge of her nose and looking back at Maggie. “Right. What do you know about Alex’s family?”

“What? I – why?”

“Humour me,” deadpans Lucy.

“They live with their mom and sister, Kara, no pets, their dad is dead - ”

“Oh, good.” Lucy sags with relief and Maggie gestures at her in a _please expand, you’re scaring me_ way, so she clarifies. “Alex tends to go AWOL on Jeremiah’s anniversary.”

Maggie blinks. “Why didn’t they just say?”

“I don’t know if you’d noticed, Maggie, but Alex doesn’t really talk about how they feel.”

***

They’d forgotten how much music literally takes the emotion out of them and they’re a type of numb they haven’t felt in years. Exhausted, but happy, but emotionally empty, and they make their way back to their room on autopilot.

“Hey, champ.”

They blink and find Lucy standing in front of them. She reaches out and unfurls their fingers from their case strap, gently sliding it off their shoulders and tucking it behind the door. They blink again.

“Do you want a hug?”

Alex nods, and lets themselves fall into Lucy’s arms, bringing their arms up around her smaller frame and burying their nose in her shoulder.

“Kara texted me,” she says softly. “She said she’ll be back tomorrow, and sorry she wasn’t here for longer but she has to look after Eliza.”

At that, Alex’s hold on Lucy tightens and she feels them let out a shuddering breath.

“Oh, Alex.”

They stay like that for almost twenty minutes, Lucy’s arms rubbing up and down their back, murmuring soft reassurances into their ear and wishing for all the world that she could take away some of her best friend’s pain. When they separate, Lucy brushes a stray hair away from Alex’s face.

“Call Maggie. She’s been a bit worried about you.”

***

Alex opens their phone to twelve unread messages and six missed calls. Their thumb hovers over the button next to Maggie’s name and with half a deep breath they press it.

“Hey.”

Her voice is gentle and sounds like a head tilt. Alex’s heart squeezes and they hold their breath before the numbness can dissipate.

“Hi.”

Their voice is raspy. They sink further into their mattress.

“I’m sorry,” they add. “I’ve never had anyone to tell before. Lucy knows because, well because she knew me when, before, when…” Alex sighs. “I’ve never had to think about someone who might worry about me, and I’ll try and remember in the future.”

“Alex.” Whatever it is in her voice, it’s not the anger Alex was expecting. “It’s okay.”

“What?”

“It’s okay,” repeats Maggie, and Alex’s brain stutters.

“What?” they say again.

“This is bigger than you and me, Alex,” says Maggie. Alex’s heart beats like it’s in their mouth. “This isn’t you freaking out about our relationship. This is about your dad, and I get it.”

Alex opens and closes their mouth as Maggie falls silence, waiting for them to say something.

“Thank you,” they finally manage. Maggie hums and then they settle into the comfortable monotony of crackly phone breathing.

Maggie eventually breaks the quiet. “Can I do anything?”

Alex shakes their head. “No. I just need to sort my head out.” They hesitate. “Tell me about your day?”

Maggie sighs into her phone and Alex pictures her stretching out on her bed, curling onto her side and grabbing her cuddling cushion. She slips into storytelling mode, her voice with the lilt of someone horizontal and growing increasingly relaxed, and Alex lets it seep into their brain like her music did the night they met.

As Maggie talks, Alex grudgingly lets fondness creep into the emotional vacuum sitting deep in the pit of their stomach, until the exhausted bruise from playing their violin starts to heal and then it’s not so grudging, the way they let the faces of Kara, Lucy, Maggie, even their mom, float in front of their eyes, and the feeling starts to come back into their chest with an ache that the music had hidden until now, when safety wraps around them like Kara and a tear finally slips out and it’s followed, by another and another as Maggie soothes them without realising it, and before they know it, they’re sliding into the deepest sleep they’ve had in days.

***

Alex marches to the music faculty, jaw set and card clenched in their fist. They jump up the stairs two at a time and begin the hunt for the office they want, eyes skimming name plates, shoulders directing them through the flow of early morning traffic.

They find the door and they hammer on it, louder than they mean to, but soon enough that they can’t back out.

The door opens and the face in front of them isn’t surprised at all.

Alex thrusts the card at him and takes a deep breath.

“I’m in.”


End file.
